Novel Blog - Writing The Great American Novel

Copyblogger recently posted an article about fear, a convenient excuse writer's use to avoid writing up their full potential. Here's an excerpt:

"Fear affects us all more than we care to admit, and it’s especially insidious for writers. Writing online is one of those activities where you’re really putting yourself out there, and the critics are always waiting to pounce."

The article discusses fear of risk, fear of rejection, fear of failure, and fear of success; and offers suggestions for overcoming them. Although I've not experienced fear of success at this point, I'm painfulling familar with the aspects of risk, rejection, and failure.

Here's another BooWaHa article along the same vein.

I've been using a lot of negative self-talk to excuse myself for not making more progress toward my current novel project and now that I think about it, I'll admit that I've been using this excuse for years. When it boils down to it, I believe it's fear of risk that has the largest impact.

When I start a new novel effort, I'll jump out of the gate like gangbusters only to fizzle out in a few weeks. I lose steam when I realize that my writing doesn't compare to that of my favorite mystery and thriller genres.

The nice thing about computers is that I can always pick the story back up right where I left off. I'm going to commit to finishing another three or four chapters on my own novel this week.

Wish me luck.