Fear of the Unknown

This week has been exciting as an author. I set up my first takeover party on my new Facebook page in partnership with L.E. Martin. Who set up our page Penned in Magic and Forevers on Facebook and within the first day we had over a hundred members. The fact that we have already reached over a hundred members is exciting. I want to talk this week about what led to us starting our own page and about the fear of the unknown.

It all started with a thought I had months ago. I am part of many different book groups on Facebook. I have done takeover parties on many of them, along with posting on them to advertise my books. The more time I spent on each page, the more I found there were things I loved about each page and things I was less than enthusiastic about as well. A thought began to form that I wanted to create my own group. I work full time, I am a mother of two, plus I write, I am also becoming a single parent. To say the least, I stay busy. How was I going to start a page? How was I going to run a page when half the time I feel like I am drowning. I let the idea just sit there in the back of my mind for a few months. As the months ticked by, the thought of this group continued to grow. I decided I would take a chance. I met L.E. Martin just after my first book released. She and I met through one of the groups we are part of and somehow just hit it off. We live two thousand miles away from each other and have never met in person but I consider her one of my friends. She is warm, a hard worker, and writes beautifully. There is only one other author I would trust to do this with and I was unsure if she had the time to do it. So I took a leap and said something to L.E., little did I know she had been thinking of starting a group as well. We began to talk and within hours we went from well let's think about it to I have a name for our group. L.E. is the one who came up with the name. Within days I had our banner made and from there it snowballed. We planned everything out, from what we wanted to post, to schedules of daily posts, and how often to allow takeovers from page participants. We talked through everything. I began to make graphics and so did L.E. We spent months messaging back and forth about every small detail. It was terrifying what we were doing. What if we couldn’t get the page off the ground? What if the mess of my life left L.E. to do everything? So many fears were there as we built this. With the fears came excitement as well. This was a place we could always post. We could create something together and hopefully it would grow into something more.

I am happy to say we have exceeded our expectations. The fact that we have more than a hundred members within the first day means we are off to a good start. I am grateful to all who have joined our page and invited their friends. I am even more grateful to L.E. for all she has done for our page. Over the last few weeks I have been working three jobs while trying to homeschool my kids. I feel like she has done most of the work for the last few weeks because of that. I could not have done any of this without her.

As you all know, I have been battling a number of my demons. One of them is the fear of the unknown. I don’t know if this page will grow more or how fast it will. I don’t know if we will continue to have success. What if I reach a point and I can’t write anymore? What if my life becomes more chaotic? There are so many unknowns in what we are doing that it scares me.

So what do you do when you are battling those fears? I am still trying to learn this lesson in more than one area in my life. I thought I had conquered this particular demon when I started publishing. In some ways I had. Publishing was scary on many levels. Now I was putting more of myself out there and I was bringing L.E. along for the ride. What I am learning with this particular demon is you have to put yourself out there or you will never know what will happen. I am not saying I have totally beat this demon, not even close. I still have fear of the unknown. I still fight against it on other fronts but at least I am winning the battle in other areas. Hopefully those wins will help me in different areas in my life.

Take the chance. Swallow the fear that you are feeling of the unknown. There are going to be failures but there will also be wins. The only way to know which are wins is to go for it. Stay strong. Until next time!