Fear and My Story

After what I wrote yesterday, I realized it’s not just laziness that keeps me from writing. It’s fear. 

Every time I think about opening the document to continue writing my stomach knots up. I can easily sit down to spew dumb jokes out on twitter (hilarious jokes out on twitter), throw up a post on here or one of my other places I write (write0utl0ud.blogspot.com or a different blog that’s much more private that almost no one has access to), facebook posts are no problem at all. Why is making things up so scary? It’s not like I’ve got tons of people reading this. It shouldn’t be stressful. Should it? Is following your dreams always stressful? 

I guess it’s because at least one of these stories (and this is probably naivety and foolishness) could actually be something great if I could just get the thing out of my brain and onto paper. Maybe it’s the pressure I’m putting on myself to complete it and have it be perfect. I’ve got most of the plot pretty much down. (that’s a lie, the middle bit is still very…. unknown.) but I’ve got the end figured out, and the beginning already written. Prologue and four chapters. That’s a good start. 

It’s weird. The story and I are sort of at the same place. The main character is beginning his journey, but he’s stuck somewhere for just a bit longer, and he’s scared and worried about where this whole journey will lead him, and how things will end. Well, I know how it’s going to end for him, but I’m scared about whether it will go well for me. We don’t know how long this journey is going to take, we don’t know if we’ll get the results we want, we don’t know if we’ll win or lose. I guess that the stakes are higher for him. Of course, if I never finish, he’ll be stuck in limbo forever, in the Well of Lost Plots (Thank you, Jasper Fforde) and that’s a cruel fate, right? 

So I need to write. Even if I just add a few words a day, that’s progress. It’s slow, lazy progress, but it’s progress. I’m going to face my fear, and just like I did with that douche of a boss, tell it it’s fucking insane and a crazy bitch, because damn it, it’s not in charge of me anymore.`