Writerly Fear

by Annie Reed (invited guest contributor)

Chris York's post on agents and fear got me thinking. That can be a scary thing in and of itself, but this time what I was thinking about a different kind of scary.


Writerly fear. Something I know well.


I'm not talking about the cower in the corner kind of fear, which I get when I see a spider or discover a six-foot snake coiled in my kitchen cabinet where a five-pound bag of flour should be. Or when I read a really oogy Stephen King story. No, I'm talking about the kind of debilitating emotion that's more a simple lack of self-confidence combined with fear of the unknown.


As an adult, which I sometimes think I am, I can go confidently about my daily life and routine without a second thought. But put me in a situation that's out of my routine, tell me I have to do something I don't know how to do, something that might be hard, and the part of me that's still five years old wants to run and hide. Routine is easier. Routine is comfortable. Routine isn't scary.


Routine also doesn't let you grow. Or learn. Or achieve your dreams.

Eight years ago I took a step outside the routine. It helped that I had a partner in crime.


On Mother's Day weekend of 2001, Louisa Swann and I took our first in what would be many, many trips to the Oregon coast, this one for a Saturday get together of professional writers hosted by Kris Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith.


At the time, I had no story sales. I barely submitted anything anywhere, my writerly ego having taken a battering on a response to a story submission I sent to the Nevada Arts Council literary fellowship grants program. What was I thinking, going to a gathering of professional writers? Was I nuts?


Thank goodness for Louisa. Between the two of us, I worked my way through an iceberg size case of cold feet.


I think I spent most of that night sitting quietly and just listening, wide-eyed, to the stories being told around me. Not only the stories read and commented on, but stories of other writers and their escapades, the kind of oral history about writing that only comes out when writers get together and talk. Inspiring? Oh yeah.

If real life was a Hollywood movie, I'd be able to say that my life completely turned around after that one eye-opening night. Well, not really, but it was a start.

I still have my moments of fear, and there are more days than I probably want to admit where I stick to routine instead of pushing my own personal envelopes. I'm very much a child of "it has to be done right or not at all!" and that kind of life-long indoctrination takes a long time to overcome. It took a lot of workshops and lunches and get-togethers before I felt less of a pretender and more like I belonged in a group of professional writers. I'm still very much a work in progress, but I'm a lot farther along the road than I was eight years ago.

Louisa and I are heading back to Oregon for a workshop next month. I can't wait.

There is a little slice of Hollywood happily-ever-after to this story: Four years after Louisa and I went on our first Oregon coast adventure, I won a Nevada Arts Council fellowship literary grant.


Writer - 1, fear - 0, at least for that day.