Archive for the ‘Anna's Pay It Forward’ Category

The Big, Bad UGLY We Don’t Talk About: EARLY WRITING

Tuesday, June 7th, 2016

How to explain how planning and prepping and early drafting for a new novel feels…?

It’s like finding out you’re pregnant, I guess, and wondering what your new baby will be like. Or graduating from college, hoping and dreaming about that first/new job. Or meeting the man/woman you think will be your soul mate, and wondering if your life together could really be that amazing.

Or, if you’re an angsty writer not liking not knowing if what you’re doing is going to suck EGGS, like this.

head in hands

Or this.

crazy writer

Or this.

panic

I’ve written 27 wildly successful novels, by many’s standards. I’ve often made a living creating something out of nothing. Which is decidedly more often, lucky me, than most who get a hankering to write a book and embark on the crazy journey I’m on.

How can I still be so nervous? Worried? Troubled to my very core, so much so that I can’t really write deeply yet, because all the reflections on the surface keep shimmering in and out and away from me, too quickly for me to see clearly.

You know you want to do what you’re doing. You’re dying to get see what the beautiful thing your creating will be, once it’s done. And you’re petrified. You’re feeling less than. You’re stumped as to how anyone could possibly think you could do this. Or is it just me?

fear what would you do if you weren't afraid

We sense the danger of being wrong, of failing, of not living up, I think. (more…)