Second Skin Blog Tour. Guest Post Exchange: Janet Fox
Janet Fox, yet another of my 2k10 classmates, writes historical fiction with rich detail, unique characters, and compelling plotlines. I fell in love with Janet's writing in her grand tale, Faithful, a standalone novel with an epic, saga-like feel. I'm looking forward to her newest project, "middle grade fantasy series, with talking animals, angels, demons, and one young boy who sells his soul to save his sister". She's got me hooked.
Today Janet and I are doing a guest post exchange, sharing our thoughts on What Scares Us As Writers. If you jaunt over to Janet's blog to read my guest post, you'll see we have similar fears in terms of our writerly lives. Without further ado…I give you Janet Fox….
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The book I just finished in first draft begins with my character having a dream that through the course of the novel morphs into a recurring nightmare. That's what I think nightmares represent: dreams gone bad. Hopes gone sour. Wishes unfulfilled.
My own personal nightmare is what happens if my greatest wish is unfulfilled; and my greatest wish? To be a storyteller.
My nightmare is that something will prevent me from getting my ideas down on paper.
A lot of authors I know fear the blank page. Not me. I'm like a stopped-up bottle of fizzy water. Maybe that's because I started my writing career relatively late, having detoured through several other careers first, plus taking on a stint at mommyhood. Once I began writing I discovered that I have so many stories flying around in my head I can't physically write fast enough to get them out.
Other author friends fear the critical reviews. Sure, I want readers to read and love my books; but negative reviews won't stop me from writing, because these stories inside? I need to write them down. I'll learn from my mistakes and hopefully each of my books is better than the last, but criticism and even lack of publication will not stop me from writing. I must write these stories. No matter what.
I feel like I'm racing against the clock. I'm pushing against the glacial pace of publication. My desire to improve my skill set wrestles with my vision – how do I learn writing skills fast enough to bring them to the page right now? And I worry that some physical impairment will get in the way of my ability to work.
It's a weird nightmare, and it keeps me up at night (literally). The only way I can get some rest is to lie in the dark, working through plot points or character twists until sleep comes again. And during my daylight writing time I often move from project to project because I feel that at least some part of the story I have to tell will be on paper before…
Oh, let's not go there. That's the dark cellar where the skeleton lurks. The deep well in which lies the monster. Instead, I'll turn this nightmare into a dream.
I dream of writing the next story and the next and the next…
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