Ready to Tackle Your Fears?
What would your life look like if you had no fear?
What would your writing life look life if you had no fear?
Every writer wrestles with differing types of fears. Every. Single. One.
Today, we’re going to tackle the subject head-on and explore how to move beyond the fears that sabotage your writing.
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Let's Engineer Your Writing Fear
Fear paralyzes. It stems the flow of our creative juices (read: writer's block), and, unrestrained, prevents us from fullfilling our dreams.
Here’s my fear as it pertains to writing: not having something to say. When I finish each one of these weekly blog posts, I’m plagued with the fear that my written thoughts won't mean anything to anyone.
Whenever I’m working on a book—or back in the day when I presented a weekly message to my congregation—I wrestle with a moment of terror when I ask myself, Do I have something to say??
How do I get beyond that fear?
I envision myself as my audience and then ask, What are arte my audience's felt needs? What can I tell them that will make a difference in their lives?
Two months ago, I explored this in a blog post. It’s something I call “incarnational writing”. You can read about it by clicking here.
What Fears Haunt You?
Authors wrestle with a host of fears:
Poor writing. This is a pretty common fear. You don't want to release a book filled with wordy sentences, misspelled words, poor grammar, or gaping holes in your plot that undermine your credibility as an author.
In my experience, people who try to do everything themselves fall into this hole. We all need outside voices to keep our writing focused and clear.
We help alleviate this fear for our authors by providing book coaching with established writing veterans. They’ll answer all your questions, give you honest feedback, and help you overcome the most difficult challenges in your manuscript.
We also require a professional copyedit on every manuscript, to ensure that the grammar and punctuation are correct, and that everything conforms to the Chicago Manual of Style. Our stable of copyeditors are supervised by Geoff Stone, our Editorial Director, who has worked with numerous traditional publishers, including an HarperCollins imprint.
Not finishing the manuscript. Why start writing if you’re not convinced that you’re going to finish it? As I’ve described ad nauseum, writing a book is like running a marathon. Many people can begin the race, but not near as many finish it.
Here’s something interesting that I discovered recently: over the last seven years, I can only think of one Illumify author under contract who didn’t finish their manuscript. She didn’t finish it because life took a sudden left turn and she found herself unemployed.
Signing a publishing contract with us gives our authors an additional charge of energy and incentive to cross the finish line. It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you have skin in the game.
Occasionally, however, life takes a left turn. If authors need more time, we’re more than happy to accommodate them.
A negative review on Amazon. True story: about ten years ago, my book Strange Fire, Holy Fire got caught in the crossfire between two theological camps. One camp was fiercely opposed to my views, and made it known on my book’s Amazon page. Reading some of the negative reviews, it was obvious they hadn’t even read my book!
So let’s reframe this: a bad review on Amazon is a rite of passage. After you lick your wounds, congratulate yourself for writing something that generated an opinion from someone you don’t even know.
Then stand in front of the mirror and say, “I’ve arrived!”
Being exposed. Being true to yourself and sharing your shortcomings can be scary. What will people think?
Last November, I read two memoirs by well-known actors in Hollywood—one by Mel Brooks and the other by Danny Trejo.
While Mel Brooks’ memoir was funny and entertaining, something struck me wrong about it, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. Then I realized he skipped over any stories from his background that cast him in a negative light. He waxed eloquently about his love for his wife, Anne Bancroft, but totally skipped over his first marriage, and the children that marriage produced.
Danny Trejo, on the other hand, delved into his many failures—his previous life of crime and his numerous extramarital affairs. I don’t admire him for the affairs, but I do admire him for owning them and taking responsibility for his actions.
The fear is that we believe writing about our vulnerabilities undermines our credibility. The reality is, they bolster it. If we own them rather than excuse them.
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
--Ernest Hemingway
Okay, last fear…
Losing money. This is a legitimate fear. Many authors lose money on their books. In my opinion, another fear prevents them from generating a return on their investment: fear of what other people think. That singular fear prevents people from swallowing their pride and shamelessly promoting their book.
The purpose of our blog posts, and the exclusive training we provide to our Illumify authors, is, in part, to equip authors to sell books. Lots of them.
Don’t let your fear of what other people think prevent you from promoting your book as it deserves.
Here’s what I’ve learned about fear: it never goes away. The fears that plagued me as a child and that I addressed as an adult—never went away completely.
So what do we do?
Do it afraid.
Read that again.
If you’re afraid to make the jump, jump anyway.
If you wait to make the jump until you’re no longer afraid, you’ll spend the rest of your life standing on the ledge.
Which brings to mind another fear: the fear of regrets.
Need someone to talk you through your writing fears? I probably don't have the answers, but I find that talking through them, in fact, normalizes them.
Click here to schedule an appointment. I'll give you honest feedback on your manuscript. And, we can together explore the possibilities of your book idea.
Let’s bring your book to life!
