How many times have you thought of a brilliant idea that would change your world for the better? How many times have you acted on that thought to make it reality? What held you back?
If you’re anything like me, the fear of failure tied your hands behind your back and muted your voice. What if nobody liked the idea? What if they liked the idea, you invested time and money into it and it didn’t work? What if people laughed at your idea? What if ...what if...
FEAR.
Fear is the greatest inhibitor of progress known to mankind. Don’t confuse fear with recklessness. I’m not talking about jumping into a project without regard to the possible consequences or taking risks when the likelihood of success has been proven to be dismal. No, the fear I’m referring to is the one that paralyzes us when we’ve thought of all the possible scenario’s, weighed the risks and rewards, considered all the consequences and found the probable outcome to be favorable, but still we are afraid to take the final leap.
In creative writing this fear of failure steals our ability to create when faced with a blank page on the computer screen. (I assume few people still use the pen and paper method of creating novels.) Staring at the screen for hours or writing the opening sentence over and over and over because it just isn’t good enough, proves that fear can be debilitating.
Writers are fickle beings and need constant reassuring that they are indeed good enough at what they do to provide someone out there in the great big world with a couple of hours of entertainment. Few people write fiction to make a living – most of the writers write because that’s who they are – regardless if they make a living doing so or not. When the recognition of their hours of labor is dismal, their self-esteem takes a nosedive and fear takes over, creating a vicious cycle of inability to create.
Some writers overcome fear of failure by using the free-writing method. One word triggers a ten minute session of writing without worrying if it could be published or not. Usually that’s all that’s needed to get the creative juices flowing in spite of the fear of failure.
Other writers use the habit-method to combat fear. They write on their novel every day at the same time for the same duration regardless if they know what to say or how the novel has to progress. These writers claim to have less problems with debilitating fear causing writer’s Block as their minds are used to producing content at a certain time every day.
Another method I’d read about is that some writers write complete rubbish for five minutes. They disregard spelling, words doesn’t have to make sense – it doesn’t have to be legible at all. They use the switch of context to give the brain a break from thinking it’s not good enough to progress on the novel they’re working on. Some proclaim that this method works miracles for curing writer’s block.
There are so many methods advocated to overcome writer’s block – which in my opinion is just another way of saying you fear failing at what you write, that somewhere in the maize of advise, one should be able to find a way to proceed that works for you.
Have you found a method that worked for you?
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