WritersWorth: Fear of the Unfulfilled Dream

Nancy Oliver is just one of those people.

We got to know each other over LinkedIn, and hellos turned quickly into wicked, laughter-inducing conversation. She’s a Southern-bred lady, which basically means all bets are off.  Or as she puts it: “I am Southern — I am always slightly a-flutter.” Our recent conversation involved a new word that created a ton of laughter —arctophile. Yes, even a single word from Nancy reduces me to fits of giggles.

And yet Nancy is someone who rips open a vein and her life comes pouring onto the page. You have to love that kind of bravery. Her post of May 2012 still has me shaking.

True to her nature, Nancy has once again opened up a vein. What poured out was something we can all relate to.

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Fear and the Unfulfilled Dreams

by Nancy Oliver

If you are not experiencing a little bit of fear every single day, then you are not doing something right! You might have it over public speaking, talking to a potential new client, or leaving your comfortable 9-to-5 job of five years to freelance. There is no doubt about it, fear is real.

Fear can empower you, or it can cripple you. It may be your choice whether you rule it or it rules you.

I have been freelancing as a writer and editor for 25 years, and I still struggle with fear on a daily basis. When Lori first asked me to write on this topic, I told her I considered fear an old friend and that we had a love/hate relationship; hence, we have reached the dreaded “frenemy” status.

I have been able to work through my fear on many things, but even after all this time I still have fear.

Every single day.

It was easy to make the jump into starting my own business.  I had several steady, reliable freelance clients and saw the potential for another one or two. So, I decided to ditch my 9-to-5 technical writing job. (Gather ‘round, children! In those days, corporate freelance budgets were huge.)  There was no fear about that step.

What I did have a fear of, though, was the prospect of a big, long, unstructured day staring me in the face every morning. I had to set up a schedule … and quickly. I still struggle with this. What can I say? I am a middle child, and I perform better when I am told what to do, whether it’s by an older sister or a piece of paper.

For all my working life, I have written and published nonfiction. I started out in journalism, a style of writing that I love. When I was a reporter, I loved the research that went into a story. I loved the process of getting the story out on a deadline. I loved that afterglow effect you felt when you saw the story in print, knowing that it had all taken place in really what was a few hours.

Now, as I stretch into another phase of my life, I would like to make the big leap into fiction and be active about sending out short stories to be considered for publication, but I don’t.

Why? Fear!

While I usually try to work with and through the fear, there is something about sending that fiction out that I just don’t do anymore. And, guess what? Once upon a time, I was sending it out constantly.

I had several short stories being reviewed by magazines at all times. I was writing and revising several short stories at all times. But, in the last few years, these efforts have been pitifully nonexistent as I slowly morphed into becoming a full-time science/medical (and occasionally fiction) editor.

I began editing for several academic publishers, and the stress level is very high. Sometimes, I will shift gears and spend hours and hours editing a novel. Honestly, editing fiction is not the stressful editing that medical/scientific editing can be. Editing fiction for the self-publishing writer is depressing. In a recent novel I edited, the author had changed her hero’s name three times throughout the course of a 250-page novel. The kicker? She hadn’t even noticed. I even had one writer tell me that she felt my correction of her grammar and punctuation was “cramping” her writing style. Those are just two examples. I could write a blog about this topic and have fodder for several years, but I wouldn’t have any clients.

I get discouraged with the fiction editing because several of the authors I have worked with often do not really seem to care about their words or blatant holes in their plots. Why? Because they have already sold many, many copies of those self-published books before I came into the picture. They are making serious money.

For the uninitiated, here’s how it’s happening.  One placement on BookBub (which goes out to millions of potential readers) can earn a self-published writer a shocking $6,000 in three days with a book priced at 99 cents, as described by Mike Alvear in a Huffington Post piece about his own odyssey with his nonfiction diet book, Eat It Later. That book had been refused by 25 publishers before he went that route.

Many of the fiction writers I’ve edited specialize in cozy or paranormal mysteries, and they write series. They may have one book on BookBub for free or for 99 cents, but that purchase will take you to their Amazon page where all their books are available. Many readers will sample one book on BookBub and go to Amazon and download the remainder of the series at full price. So, you see? She doesn’t need to care if she’s used the past tense of a verb correctly.

I broke my wrist at the gym in December. This forced downtime has caused me to reevaluate my journey. Do I want to continue editing or do I want to try to start trying, once again, to get some fiction published?

When I made my list of resolutions in January, the line item was there, bold as brass. Under “be neater,” I wrote “work on fiction.” (I might add that “Be neater” has been on this list for more years than many of you have been alive.)

The year is now well into its second quarter, and what have I done in the fiction arena? Zip. I have written three personal essays, but writing personal essays is not what I wanted to focus on this year. Nope. In 2018, it’s supposed to be me and fiction, all the way, baby!

I think I just realized a sad truth.

I am really afraid.

How is this possible? I talk to other people about putting their fears down on paper. It is not supposed to happen to me.

I think I know why.

I am afraid that what came to me so organically and so effortlessly once upon a time is no longer there. The well does run dry for some people, and I might be one of those. Can one die from writer’s block or unfulfilled dreams?

From the age of 8 to the age of 45, I was filling up every available scrap of paper with words that pleased me as well as delicate phrases or intriguing word combinations.  I wrote in a journal, did my “morning pages” (a technique advocated by Julia Cameron in her book, The Artist’s Way), attended writing conferences, belonged to a writers’ group, and wrote four hours a day. I was doing all the “right” things.

Did my two years of editing for a content mill squash “me” like a bug with its relentless deadlines and hyperactive, hypercritical micromanagers? Maybe. Have my years of editing science and medicine since the content mill job killed my creativity? Perhaps.

Is that fear or truth talking?

Yikes!

In times of mental duress, I always pick up a book. This time, it turned out to be Mark Twain. (By the way, there is so much more to him than Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.  For a real look into his dark side, read any of the several versions of The Mysterious Stranger or A Pen Warmed Up in Hell.) I picked up Pudd’nhead Wilson. The intro to Chapter 12 begins with a bit from Pudd’nhead Wilson’s calendar: “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.”

I cannot say it any better than that. We all need fear, or some amount of it. Maybe the true secret is that we need to focus on courage and building that within ourselves. It is the courage that keeps the fear in check.

Maybe I need to drop back, revise those 2018 resolutions, remove “be neater” (who am I kidding, anyway?), and replace it with “Be courageous.”