Fear of Skies Around Me.

Clouds hung, fat and wallowing, gathered together like old women in a market square.
But He did not notice.
As the air built to a fever of sweat that collected on my neck and slid like a single wet finger in a line down my back, His eyes were closed.
Moment by moment the colors in the heavens changed. I'd watched all afternoon as the sky turned from liquid peach to burnt sienna and then grew dark.  So dark. As if the hands of God wiped his canvas clean of the summer blue and replaced it with bruised clouds threatening to cry the tears of a thousand rains. And cry they most certainly would. I watched the sky draw itself up, build layer upon layer and then...
Silence.
The stillness before it broke.
And still He slept.
Thunder came from the very belly of the earth, but He did not wake.
He lay there asleep while the sky split itself in two above His head.
Only I cried out.

And when He heard my voice He opened one eye, reached out a slow and steady hand and said, "I have not left you. I am not moved by storms. Do not fear because you are not alone."
Then I knew.
While I watch storms and shudder in the aftermath of thunder as the skies spill from above, He listens only for me.
The storm did not move Him to wake. I did. My cry. My fear. Because I am His.

So I did as He does.
I curled up beside Him. I wrote. I laughed and loved. I ate and lived. And I slept.
Because you can.
If you are not alone.
You can.


What about you? Who sees you through the storms? Who stills your fears?

Do You See Me?

"Good writing is honest, alive. The more honest and alive our writing, the more we show ourselves. The more we show ourselves, the greater the danger we're in. The greater the danger we're in the more scared we are. Hence fear is a marker on the path toward good writing." 

~ Ralph Keyes, The Courage to Write.

If you have a goal, a dream, something you are pegging your last (possibly unspoken) wish on then I am betting you understand FEAR. 

We writer's have so many fears we developed a lovely, not so honest term.  We call it Writer's Block. But it's not Writer's Block. It is Writer's Fear. 

I am never more scared then when I sit down to write. The thing I most love, the thing I say I could not live without, the thing I feel called to do and am most passionate about is WRITING. And... it scares me SH*#!*#less.

When I sit before a blank page, I am really sitting before myself. To write well, to be honest and raw enough to have something I know is worth sharing, I have to get to that vulnerable place inside. I have to peel back the layers of my skin and see myself for who I am. Then, after I have faced the reality of my own ugly feelings I expose my being and write from that place. The place where my best stuff comes from . The place where I am known to me and risking sharing that with you, the reader. 

Terrifying stuff.

This fear is so real that I often sit before my laptop in complete silence for long long moments. I am afraid. I am afraid I will have nothing to say. I am afraid that if I do have something to say, I won't be able to say it. 

I fear not being able to put my heart into words. I fear the words I do put not being good enough. I fear being a fraud. I fear everyone reading it and knowing that I am a fraud. Or worse, I fear everyone reading it and know that I am NOT a fraud. That they have seen the real me. I fear being seen. I fear NOT being seen. Thank god that fear overrides all others or I would be the author of nothing at all. 

I fear someone better than me, more skilled, more gifted reading me and laughing. I fear their rejection. I fear the reader's rejection. Since I put me on the page, I fear the rejection will be so personal I will not be able to take it. I fear failing. I fear succeeding. I fear the whole damn thing.

I develop Writer's Block. I can't do it. 

I am too busy. The kids are too noisy. It's too hot. It's too cold. It's too... I have other things to do after all. I am a mother. I am a wife. I am a sister and a friend and, and ... I am a writer. And as a writer I eventually face my fears, rip back the layers covering my vulnerability and I write. Then damn it, I share the stuff. ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING. 

The next day I do it all again. Because that is me, and that is writing. 

I just wanted you guys to know. Since we writer's love to pretend we are all so darned brave when it comes to this writer's gig we say we couldn't live without, I thought I tell you all. I am scared.

Every. Single. Time.

I procrastinate with the best of them. I am daily afraid. 

Good things come from that people. The best stuff I write is the stuff I write afraid. 

And I am guessing that whether you write or not, whatever passions are within you, whatever cuts closest to your bone, also scares the crap out of you.

That's okay. Necessary even. It is fear that sets my work alight. It might also be fear that strikes enough fire within you to take you where you need to go. 

So go fear.  The world needs more people who show up and be who they are. You tell me that doesn't take guts. You tell me that doesn't shake a soul to it's core. Fear has held the hands of many brilliant success's. 

What about you? Afraid?

Do it afraid

One fine evening (possibly wine and pizza fueled) you think- I think I want to be a writer.
This though is a cozy fire in your hearth until the unexpected knock at your door.
A brash, cigar smoking man complete with moustache is standing in your entry.  "You want to be a writer? YOU?"


You answer. "Yes. I love to write."
Your first mistake. Because all fear needs is a conversation to invite himself in.
"You love to write, hey? And what have you written?"
Fear needs no further invitation to mosey on over to your couch and put his feet up on your coffee table.
But he makes a good point, you think. What will I write? Oh gosh, if I want to write, that means I HAVE TO WRITE. It will involve, gasp, a blank page! 

By now fear is flicking on your television and taking off his shoes.
"Yes, and you will have to fill that blank page." He chuckles as his puts on your dressing gown and ashes on your rug.

You cringe.
What if you have nothing to say? What if all those ideas in your head just shrivel up and die once nailed to a page? 
You pace the room. For days.
Fear comes and goes always returning with a larger box. He says he's moving in. Your apartment is nicer than his. Plus you have a view over Central Park. How you afford that apartment since you want to be a writer is not the point of this story. You afford it. And fear wants in.
You don't question it. Fear seems to belong.  Every time he returns with another box it is as if he has always lived with you.

Two pillows, a beer fridge, a dart board, a stereo, his CD collection and the entire star wars trilogy later, fear has taken up residency. The final evidence that he lives with you is the appearance of  his tooth brush next to yours in the bathroom. Yes, fear has teeth. BIG sharp ones. All the better to...

While all this is going on you are sitting before that Dreaded Blank Page.  Foolishly you wonder, how scary can one blank page be? You quickly find out. Terrifying. The stuff horror movies are made of. Writing sputters out of you. At least you think that's what it might be. But it could just as easily be blood, sweat and tears filling the page. Nothing sounds as good as it did in your head. Nothing comes close the the magic you'd planned in your careful outline.
Then... nothing comes at all.

Fear runs a bubble bath for himself, his second today, and demands you make his dinner. Lamb chops with mint sauce. Or a roast. He doesn't mind, as long as you go to lots of trouble.
Lots of trouble and several weeks later you have yourself (not to mention your kitchen) in a state.
What were you thinking? People are going to read this stuff you call a story. And they will laugh. Laugh and laugh and laugh. And then everyone will know. You are not a writer. YOU. ARE. NOT. A. WRITER!

This goes on for months. You cooking and cleaning. Fear shouting orders. "Bring my pillow. I need another beer. What are you doing at that computer? Give up already.  You have nothing important to say. No story wroth writing. Quit now while you can still pretend you didn't really try."

You don't stop. Okay, you do. In fits and starts. Tending to fear is exhausting. He has you refilling the beer fridge and doing his laundry. Not to mention entertaining his friends, Doubt and Worry.
But you write. You write and write. Embracing the anxiety, you write. Afraid of people reading you, you write and re-write and revise and write again. Afraid of people saying you had nothing to say, you make darn sure you write from that place that exposes your very being. At least you will know you wrote in raw honesty.

Almost a year later, you have it. A complete first draft. And fear. He's a little quieter these days. Since it's apparent that you did indeed write. Some times you succeed in evicting him for days at a time. There have been lots of clothes out the window, yelling in the kitchen, knifes thrown at walls scenes straight out of War of the Roses. But fear always returns. You getting better at not letting him in. Or writing even if he's in the room.

Months of editing and alpha, beta, gamma, whatever, readers later you submit. Query. Resubmit. Re-query. Cry. Wage war with fear and finally... finally... you...

Well, that's a story for another time. But that, my friends, is called being a writer. We do it afraid and we conquer our fears.


What about you? Have you got a house guest? How to you chase you goals even if fear is present?