Fear Is Useful? (Blogspiration #2)

"Blogspiration" is a weekly blog meme hosted by Growing Up YA & Saz101.

I read this in the book The 90-Day Novel: Unlock the Story Within by Alan Watt, a book on the craft of writing and story-telling. I really like it because it tackles the issue of dealing with and using fear to not only not get in your way when you write, but to help you write better. 

How can fear help you write better? According to Watt, it can help because fear is a part of the human experience and a story is always, always, always better when real human beings can relate to it. If you have a fear of writing, then how does that fear relate to your story? It probably does and can be used as a place to write from. Infuse your character with that fear and he/she will become that much more real.

For example, you almost definitely have the fear of your story being rejected. How can your main character be infused with the fear of being rejected by other characters/society in your story?

Well, I never thought fear could actually be useful when writing! 

Has your fear of writing ever actually been useful to you when writing?

FEAR: Insecure Writers Support Group (#1)

"Insecure Writer's Support Group" is a monthly meme host by Alex J. Cavanaugh for writers held on the first Wednesday of every month.

This is my first foray into the "Insecure Writer's Support Group" meme. I've been meaning to join this meme since May, but each time I try, something goes wrong and I end up needing to wait until the next month, etc. Although, I'm very late this month...ugh.

I've been reading a book on the craft that I just borrowed, then quickly purchased that focuses on getting your novel written in 90 days (The 90-Day Novel: Unlock the Story Within by Alan Watt). But, the most surprising thing about it is that is focuses on understanding our fears as we write our stories. It has some great insights into it, but what a perfect time to blog about my own writing fears as I've already figured out a few of them.

In one of the book's exercises, it asks you to quickly jot down in five minutes as many of your fears as you can about writing your current novel. Here's what I came up with for my current WIP (an adult sci-fi horror):


1. I will fail to write a good story, then fail to sell any copies of my book.
2. Act 2 of my story will be super boring compared to Act 1 (which I just wrote). 
3. My family will hate me when they read my book. 
4. I will get a lot of negative reviews and ratings on Amazon.com, deterring many potential readers from buying my book.


Funnily enough, all of these fears were on the list of common writer fears in the book. Even the one about fearing your family members hating you when they read it. I don't know about your family, but mine can be scarily judgmental!

Isn't all this fear at the heart of our writer insecurities? Our fears cause us to become insecure, although it begs the question of where do these fears come from, anyway? Why are we so scared to write? It's pretty fascinating. How many architects are afraid to design a blueprint for a house? Maybe some are, but I've never heard of any. 

I don't have the answer and I find it strange that we all have such a hard time with this. I wish to get to the bottom of it, but it will take time. Maybe someday I'll crack the code. But, one thing for sure is that we fear writing because our stories matter so much to us. If they didn't, we wouldn't bother to write them, or we simply wouldn't fear writing them at all. 


What are your biggest fears about writing, off the top of your head? Are they anything like mine? 

 

"That's the Author Talking...."

"Don't use an adverb to modify 'said.' 'He said dismissively.'... That's the author talking."

- Elmore Leonard

This is a quote from American author Elmore Leonard, who wrote such novels as Get Shorty and Mr. Majestyk, and the short story 3:10 to Yuma, to name a few. All of these have been adapted into big screen Hollywood films.

I was watching a video of him talking about writing and this particular quote really stood out to me. How many times do I write my story rather than let my characters tell it? I hope not very often, but I fear I do this a lot more than I care to realize. 

What about you? Guilty as charged? 

Blogspiration #1: Inspiring Quote

"Blogspiration" is a weekly blog meme hosted by Growing Up YA & Saz101.

Well, this meme looks interesting, so I decided to try it out. Found it over on Lan's blog (my writing partner), so thanks for that Lan!

I hope I've got this right, but I believe you are supposed to post an image, a quote, or a video and blog about its inspirational effects. Here is mine this week from my Pinterest account:

Source: w0lvess.tumblr.com via Cathy on Pinterest

Well, if that doesn't get me back to work on my current WIP, I don't know what will! After all, your truest dreams are worth the risk....

Happy work-week, everyone. May you have a ton of productivity doing your dreams until they become reality. ;)