Fear is an amazing, powerful creature. Most days it is relatively easy to keep it tamed, or at least confined in a secure holding cell. It can be frightening once it's unleashed, because it doesn't ever really want to go back into its cage. It comes out snarling and snapping, warning us of danger, yet causing perils of its own.
When fear is like this, it can paralyze us. It goes from an early warning system to an all-out assault on our brains and bodies and creative spirit.
It doesn't help that, as writers, we fuel the beast with our "what if" scenarios. We have an endless supply of them, each one more elaborate than the last one that detonates in our minds. We need this ability when we're creating new stories, but it can drag us very quickly to the dark side, derailing our best intentions.
Jean Sarauer has a post on the Write to Done blog titled "How to Write When You're Scared Spitless". She explains how writers have to learn to deal with their "page fright". One of the things she says about dealing with fear, so it won't hamper our creative flow, is:
"Fear is an instinctive, as well as a conditioned, response to the risk that’s part of living a creative life. When I remember that, I save my energy for writing instead of squandering it in an eternal wrestling match."
I think this is a great reminder, since we want to use our energy for those tasks that are more likely to produce results in this creative life we've chosen. Wrestling with fear doesn't build any muscles, or count as aerobic exercise.
Even worse, fear isn't just ONE animal. It's an entire animal kingdom, with species and sub-species that emerge and then evolve as soon as another one is successfully exterminated. So while you may overcome one fear, say, the fear of failure, then up pops another one, maybe fear of rejection, to take the place of its fallen comrade.
So do you keep wrangling with the endless supply of these monsters until you finally cry truce?
Or do you acknowledge their presence, then sit your butt in your chair and get to work, ignoring their taunts?
Everyone struggles with fear. But maybe it's time to make fear struggle with us.
Don't engage with it. Don't let it get a toehold. Keep working on that manuscript, even when fear whispers how it's the worst combination of words ever devised, or that it'll never sell, or the publishing industry will implode before you get a book deal. Acknowledge these threats to your emotional psyche and move on.
If we don't respond, fear will search out another fright tactic, because it will never run out of potential boogeymen with which to terrorize us. The best thing to do is turn that energy source towards our creative endeavors, completely subverting fear's original purpose. Let fear's warnings inspire us instead of incite us. Put it to work, in a way it never intended when it launched its campaign of dread.
Pretty soon fear will be running scared of us.
My favorite usage of fear, other than food for the Kraken...is fuel. I like to pervert it into rocket fuel, strap it on my back and play like coyote...hopefully without the running out of gas while I'm midair over a crevasse.
First it takes bolting out of rabbit hole, of course!
And you did it again, slipped into a parallel world of complementary blogs...you vixen! Though mine is more about instinctual stuff...driven by fear.
Hee, hee.
Posted by: Maureen | September 03, 2010 at 12:14 AM
As I read this, I was hoping that line starting with "If we don't respond..." would say, "then fear would search out SOMEONE ELSE." LOL Not very altruistic of me! But to say it can be used, as Maureen says, as fuel, makes conquering that fear, or harnessing it's energy, more gratifying than outrunning it. So, in a way, a writer wouldn't want fear to go elsewhere.
Oh, and this blog does parallel in a way Maureen's blog! Very inspiring - both of you!
Posted by: Melissa | September 03, 2010 at 08:10 AM
Maureen, thank you for calling me a vixen! You might have just made my entire day! LOL
I think you said what I was TRYING to say -- which is to use the fear as fuel. That's exactly what we need to do, so it propels us forward instead of keeping us pinned in place, unable to move.
It's nice that we can move in these parallel planes! (What are you planning next? LOL
Posted by: Donna Cummings | September 03, 2010 at 08:19 AM
Melissa, you're brilliant -- if only I'd thought of fear searching out somebody else. LOL I'd even help out with a map and a list of suspects!
And I don't really mean to OUTRUN fear - I think if you acknowledge that the fear is there, and then put it to use, as a motivator, then it can become a helpful tool. The problem for me is when it starts to stir things up, and bit by bit it takes over, so a little windstorm turns into a tornado! I'm trying to take all that power and redirect it. LOL
Posted by: Donna Cummings | September 03, 2010 at 08:25 AM
Well, you could ride that tornado, Donna. Like...man, what western americana folk tale did that? Pecos Bill?
And no way am I telling you what I'm blogging next, the universe may collapse if we plan a waltz with the blogs...
Posted by: Maureen | September 03, 2010 at 10:52 AM
Pecos Bill -- I think you might be right! That's kind of the visual I had in mind. Perfect. :)
And you don't have to tell me what you're planning next. LOL Apparently our brains are in synch so we don't need to talk!
Posted by: Donna Cummings | September 03, 2010 at 12:14 PM