People don’t like to talk about fear. Why? Probably because it’s scary. It’s scary to think about the things you are afraid of, and it’s scary to be vulnerable and admit to others that you do, indeed, have fears. A big part of overcoming said fears, however, is to say them out loud. After that comes the challenge of confronting and/or overcoming them.
When I was in second grade, I was afraid of Gila monsters. (Ridiculous, I know, because I grew up in Wisconsin. I’m not even sure Wisconsin has Gila monsters in zoos. It’s just way too cold. But I digress.) I was convinced there was a Gila monster hiding in my closet, and it was going to come out and bite me in my sleep. It wasn’t until I read a passage in my Sunday School materials that said the only way to make your fears go away is to talk about them that I shared this fear with my parents. Sure enough, as soon as I voiced my fear, it went away. (Still not a fan of venomous lizards, though. Or snakes. Or reptiles in general…)
After becoming a mom, I realized I have a fear of heights. Not so much falling from them, but falling and dying and leaving my girls without a mother. If my whole family is on a plane together, I have no worries whatsoever. Flying alone? Not cool! To conquer this fear, which I know is irrational, I signed up my husband and myself for a hot air balloon ride in November. The terror I felt in the first 10 minutes was overcome by the absolutely unspeakably gorgeous Arizona scenery. (No Gila monster sightings = bonus.)
What does facing one’s fears have to do with writing? Well, writing can be scary. Putting words on paper and telling your story is like exposing part of your soul. It opens you up to criticism from naysayers. It puts your work in the public domain where nameless, faceless critics can rip your work apart with bad reviews. Or, worse yet, it might not gain any traction or get published at all. Sending out queries to prospective agents is a terrifying process; getting rejection after rejection requires a super thick skin.
I’ve been letting my fear of rejection keep me from moving forward on my first fiction project, which I’ve recently renamed WHAT LOLA WANTS. It gained a little traction with agents under its original title; still it had problems and needed more time and attention. When the book was sitting in a drawer (or, more accurately, untouched on my laptop) there it was “safe.” No one can reject a project that’s not sent out into the world. No one can give a bad review to an unpublished book. I was afraid to move forward because of the potential for pain, rejection and embarrassment. But this story is not meant for just me, and it’s not meant to languish and die on my laptop. It is meant to go out into the world and inspire other people. That means I have to finish it. I have to query it again, and I have to get it into the hands of my future agent. Scary, scary, scary.
To start this new year and embrace this decade, I gave myself a 2020 mantra: fearless. No longer will I let my fears hold me back from doing what I need and/or want to do. Has it been easy? Absolutely not — quite the opposite, in fact! But we’re one month in, and I’m taking more chances and accomplishing more of my goals when I let my courage run the show than I did last year, when I frequently operated from a place of of fearfulness.
What will the rest of the year hold? I am going to find my agent. That’s it. That’s what’s happening. Saying it out loud, putting it down on paper — that plus hours and hours of hard work, revisions, critiques, more revisions, research and querying is going to get me an agent in 2020. Scary? You have no idea! But if the view from the basket of a hot air balloon is worth the scary ascent, I can only imagine the beauty of the view of a signed agency contract in hand.
What’s the scariest thing you’ve ever had to do? I welcome your thoughts in the comments!