Fear As Inspiration by Guest Blogger Carla Fredd
My greatest source of inspiration: FEAR
My name is Carla Fredd and writing is my biggest fear. As a romance writer, this is a bit of a problem. What am I afraid of? If it has anything to do with writing, I’m afraid of it. Here’s a short list of my fears. I fear my writing sucks swamp water. I fear my writing is good and I’ll never be that good again. I fear my editor. I fear my publishing house. I fear that my next book will be the last book I’ll ever have published. I fear I will fail as a writer. I fear I will succeed as a writer. I fear that I will never truly understand grammar. I fear I’ll have a book signing and no one will attend. I fear being a mediocre writer. I fear the manufacturers of word processing software will decide to get rid of spell check. I fear I will have to give back my advance check.
I’ll stop now because believe me I could go on with the list. Could it be that I fear the people reading this blog will think I’m neurotic and need serious therapy? Well, yeah.
My fears are both a curse and a blessing. The curse - my fear can cause me to doubt my work which makes me procrastinate. Repeat after me: Hail Carla, Empress of Procrastination and Queen of Writer’s Block. The blessing –In all other areas of my life, I’m pretty fearless. It makes me mad when I realize that fear is keeping me from writing. That’s when I focus on writing. That’s when I plant my butt in a chair and stay there until I have so many pages written. That’s when the pages start to pile up and my characters come to life. The more I write the more I can receive those flashes of inspiration about my character or plot. Fear of failing inspires me to keep reading books on the craft of writing. It inspires me to read the authors whose work I adore and new authors.
When I first started to write, I tried to conquer my fears. I quickly learned from successful, published authors that fear never really goes away. I’ve decided to use my fears and let them inspire me to become a better writer.
I’ll bet if you’re reading this post, you also have writing related fears. There are two books which helped me. The War of Art: Break through the blocks and win your inner creative battles by Steven Pressfield and Write For Your Life by Lawrence Block.
Now, you know how fear inspires me. What are your writing fears?
Carla is raffling off her current Kimani Romance release The Perfect Man. Post a response to her blog to win!
My name is Carla Fredd and writing is my biggest fear. As a romance writer, this is a bit of a problem. What am I afraid of? If it has anything to do with writing, I’m afraid of it. Here’s a short list of my fears. I fear my writing sucks swamp water. I fear my writing is good and I’ll never be that good again. I fear my editor. I fear my publishing house. I fear that my next book will be the last book I’ll ever have published. I fear I will fail as a writer. I fear I will succeed as a writer. I fear that I will never truly understand grammar. I fear I’ll have a book signing and no one will attend. I fear being a mediocre writer. I fear the manufacturers of word processing software will decide to get rid of spell check. I fear I will have to give back my advance check.
I’ll stop now because believe me I could go on with the list. Could it be that I fear the people reading this blog will think I’m neurotic and need serious therapy? Well, yeah.
My fears are both a curse and a blessing. The curse - my fear can cause me to doubt my work which makes me procrastinate. Repeat after me: Hail Carla, Empress of Procrastination and Queen of Writer’s Block. The blessing –In all other areas of my life, I’m pretty fearless. It makes me mad when I realize that fear is keeping me from writing. That’s when I focus on writing. That’s when I plant my butt in a chair and stay there until I have so many pages written. That’s when the pages start to pile up and my characters come to life. The more I write the more I can receive those flashes of inspiration about my character or plot. Fear of failing inspires me to keep reading books on the craft of writing. It inspires me to read the authors whose work I adore and new authors.
When I first started to write, I tried to conquer my fears. I quickly learned from successful, published authors that fear never really goes away. I’ve decided to use my fears and let them inspire me to become a better writer.
I’ll bet if you’re reading this post, you also have writing related fears. There are two books which helped me. The War of Art: Break through the blocks and win your inner creative battles by Steven Pressfield and Write For Your Life by Lawrence Block.
Now, you know how fear inspires me. What are your writing fears?
Carla is raffling off her current Kimani Romance release The Perfect Man. Post a response to her blog to win!
Labels: Carla Fredd, inspiration to write
posted by Mo H @ 8:38 AM
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