The Fear Factor
You’d be surprised at how big a player fear and insecurity can be in the industry of writing and publishing. Because it’s all about putting your work out there, and that takes a lot of guts. If you don’t have the guts… well, you can’t make it big. You can’t make it at all. But if you can overcome that fear of negativity towards you and release your book, knowing you worked hard and deserve everything that comes from it being published, you really can say that you overcame your fear.
A couple of years ago, when I wrote Assassin, which is not published, I was scared to show it even to my own mother. I thought she would judge me for it or tell me how to write differently. I didn’t want that – no one does. But at the end I somehow mustered up the courage to let her read it, and she liked it a whole lot more than I was expecting her too.
Sometimes it’s not even a fear that holds you back. It’s just an extremely low expectation of your readers. When you aren’t expecting them to LOVE it, then they’ll be able to sense that doubt. Writing and publishing is a teamwork between you and your readers. You have to keep producing work, and they have to keep loving it – which isn’t hard, if you’ve written something good.
My point is, don’t give up, because you’ll just disappoint the readers and give them a bad impression of you. This is especially important when you’re debuting, because you don’t want to be a one-hit wonder. You want your readers to like you, right? And you want to like them.
Even with Wildflower Dreams I still get uncomfortable when someone is reading it in the same room that I’m in, because I’m kind of afraid that they’ll turn to me and go, “This sucks.” No one wants that. You won’t be able to ever completely overcome it, but if you try you can come pretty close.
In some ways, being an author can be even scarier than being a skydiver. You know why? Because writers have to cope with that fear long after their book has been published, whereas skydivers only experience a few moments of that fear, and then it’s over. I don’t know if it will ever be over, but when you can learn to make peace with it – that’s when you’ll start to feel confident.
Basically, don’t let the fear factor control you.
Talk to you later!
- CVSUTHERLAND
