Fearful of writing. That sounds strange, doesn’t it? Yet it’s more true than I knew. At my last writers’ group, the question to respond to was, What fears do you have about writing? There were only three of us present that day, so it was intimate. We took ten minutes to write, then shared with each other. Two of us have published books, and the third will soon, I’m certain.
For Gay, “I feared I wasn’t good enough, that people would criticize my writing, and that meant my ‘being’ was found wanting. I felt too young, that I didn’t know enough. That was followed thirty years later by feeling too old, not relevant, out of date.” But as she wrote more and more, she feared “absolutely nothing. I write for my own enjoyment. It gives me pleasure to write and to have written.”
Sweet, spiritual Suzy said, “I fear that I’ll pour myself into writing, buck naked on the page, and no one will read it or it will have no meaning for them if they do. I fear I’m wasting my time in posting to Facebook, writing blogs, losing hair over essays, losing money on websites and book covers, and embarrassing myself without knowing it.”
And for me? “I had so many fears about writing that I couldn’t consider writing a book by myself, so I created one with a friend. In writing nonfiction, everyone knows it’s supposed to be true, so I felt exposed, opening my life and experiences to the world. When Second Blooming for Women was finally published, I felt very vulnerable and nervous at my first public event. What should I expect? How do I respond? What if women don’t like my ‘baby’? Comments were consistently positive, so I published another book by myself.
All three of us had and still have our fears. But we write anyway.
by Kathleen Vestal Logan, MS, MA February 5, 2018