I sit here at my computer, hands poised above the keys. An assignment for Eng 514 is due in a couple of days. My hands just hover, my mind races, blood pumps strongly through my veins-pushed by my pounding heart. Fear is keeping me from my dream yet again.
The desire to write is deeply impeded in my psyche but the little voice telling me "You will never make it, you don't know what you're doing, no one will like your work" has me too afraid to write. I can put down the words when the assignment is research based. But this assignment is a 1,200 word fictional short story. The only specifications is that it revolves around Scene. The setting of the story is the main focus.
The best way to silence the little voice is to put on music that is soothing, Christian radio or Bach or Mozart, and just START WRITING THE DAMN STORY. Knowing what to do and actually doing it though are very different, aren't they? For my class we just read a novella by Henry James. In it the protagonist waited until too much time had passed by in order to realize how he should have lived his life. Did my teacher know I needed this message? Was it fate that I had to read it and see that I cannot let my dreams die?
There are two paths to take. One, never write a thing. Pick a different path and stop dreaming of writing great stories. Teach and do nothing else for the rest of my life. Because if I don't try I will not fail. I will not know if people hate my work because I never put it out there. Two, write and write and write. Do not give up. Write story after story and manuscript after manuscript. Enter writing contests, contact agents. NEVER GIVE UP. Then I will let go of fear of the unknown. Because either way, be my writing prove a success or failure, I will finally have the answer.
The most important questions to ask myself are these. Will path one or two give me the greatest satisfaction at the end of my life? Will I be able to say I followed my heart and made the most of my life? Or will I say that I failed myself because I didn't try?
Well, I am tired of living in fear............please excuse me now. I have a story to write :)
