Hi everyone. Not exactly new here, I joined a long time ago, but like writing, I put it to one side, blinked and god knows how many months had gone by. Last year a friend of mine published her first book and I decided that I wanted to write as well. I had a few ideas and thought this would be my year to really get in to it. Oh look, it's July. No excuses about being to busy. I was busy but I didnt make the effort. Now i'm unemployed (just in time for the olympics - what a shame) so now it's just embarassing if I don't try. My problem: Fear of failure. Not just in writing but in lots of things. I have this fear of putting in the effort and having it amount to nothing. My head tells me that doing nothing guarantees achieving nothing but I dont like being told what to do. So today is going to be the day that I kick my own arse and get started. What I want to work on first is actually fair complicated and needs a fair bit of research and planning out, some of which I have done, woo hoo, but I don't want to use that as an excuse to not write. So today, i'm going to write 5 small scenes. Around 200 to 250 words each. I'm hoping that if I write stuff that can be completed and put aside easily I will see that as anchievment and use that to drive me on to putting it all in to the bigger picture. I also want to try and use this forum as a kind of blog to set goals and review progress and even get feedback from other people, as well as advice and hopefully encouragment, because as a billy no mates just moved in to a new area, I dont have anyone for support and again its that failure thing, I dont want to tell people I know that i'm doing this, have them think i'm going to fail and then prove them right. And here we go, stephen 1974 is going to write a book.
*kicks ass* One very good writer put it this way 'I've always thought tests are a gift. And great tests are a great gift. To fail the test is a misfortune. But to refuse the test is to refuse the gift, and something worse, more irrevocable, than misfortune.' (L.M. Bujold) And you know what? She is right! Welcome!
Welcome to WF! Good to hear you're determined to write That First Novel now. That's awesome, and you've definitely come to the right place if you need inspiration, support, and so on. We've all come here to learn. Here's our New Member Quick Start to get you started. See you around! -Kat
Meh - well 3 weeks later and i've still done nothing I did try but the words in my head, which sounded amazing, turned to pre-school gibberish by the time they reached the keyboard. That problem of being scared to start something in fear of failure is a tough problem for me. I did try and change tack and start writing somthing else instead and that was a little more successful but its still that same old problem of actually sitting down and dowing something. Its very easy not to do it by deciding to do something else instead, like playing a game or watching TV. I need a kick up the backside.
