“But if I write what my soul thinks, it will be visible, and the words will be its body.”
Helen Keller
This week the book that I can’t put down is:
The first chapter like many creative writing books talks about fear and facing fear as a writer. It discusses the ways we stop ourselves from becoming the writer we want to be. Creative blocks might be fear of failure or fear of success. What would happen if you became a successful writer? What would happen if you failed? What if people judged you by your writing?
Today list your writing fears that prevent you from succeeding or moving forward in the writing journey. Then take the list and go through it line by line writing a response to each fear. If your fear is you’re not good enough a response might be “With daily writing practice and determination I will be a better writer a year from today, or a month, or a week, or a day.” Don’t let the fear stop you from pursuing your dream, as Pat Schneider says “fear breeds fear, increases, and can become the source as well as the product of itself.”
It might help your writing practice, as it has mine, to journal every morning before you begin. It can be as simple as December 4th, it is snowing this morning and I have an idea for a poem. It could be a sketch or an image that you want to remember. Nothing is off limits. Don’t intimidate yourself by thinking about what you’re going to write, just put the fingers to the keyboard or the pen to the paper and just write. Now get back to work!
Lovingly,
The Writing Nag