Fear causes writers block, and fear can get you out of it. Back before I went and spawned, I used to write on layovers during my job as a fight attendant. I was terrified to fly and certain I had one night left to live before I got back on the plane the next morning and had to commence crashing into a culdesac.
Today I no fly for a living. I write for a living, and like all professional writers I sometimes sit in front of a blank screen and feel like it’s been years since I dripped the last drop of my creativity.When this happens I just think of my daughter and how, unless I put those words on the page, I won’t make any income and we’ll probably end up losing our home and living under a freeway overpass. Even though that outcome is unlikely (hopefully), that fear exists in my head, and the words on the page are what rescues us.
Here is a link to a radio interview in which the editor of Creative Loafing, Chante LeGon, gets me to talk more on the subject of fear and it’s effect on the writing process.
You are so right. Why are we, as writers, filled with such fear? Doubt? And why is it that so many around us tend to think our chosen profession isn’t real? Does that societal wave of thought perpetuate the fear in us?
Because it’s not valued! I have yet to be paid what I deserve to write. I am always writing “in return” for something like a link to my blog (which does increase traffic exponentially). At what point do you demand cash?