Wednesday Writerly Way ~ Fear

Credit Wikipedia

• Fear is the enemy. 
• Fear produces nothing but insecurity. 
• Fear can paralyze.
• Fear is counterproductive. 

I know all of this. So why am I talking about fear once again today? Because I've been analyzing my inability to write. I keep saying, when things slow down at bit the muse will return...it always has in the past. But the reality is that my life will never slow down. I move from this or that crisis continuously and always have, but still wrote.

With my previous agents both vying for me to sign with them again... With the talk of a bidding war for publishing right... With me only halfway finished with the rough draft. All of it is adding extra pressure on me. I should be totally excited and invigorated to finish, but I'm not.  So it makes me wonder if I'm not afraid. There are few things in this world that frighten me barring snakes, so why this? Why now? It's not like I haven't been here before. I have. Granted it's been twenty years since my last bidding war, but I have been here before.

I should take my own advice and just write the book? The more time that passes without writing the harder it is to get back into the swing of writing. Granted, I've had more than my share of Murphy's Law hitting me these past few months, but still. When I first started writing books, I had two kids under the age of five, a full time job, and was self-employed as a caterer, but still I wrote. Later, I was recovering from a hellish helicopter crash injuries, with four kids under the age of ten and still I wrote. Later still, I have a terminally ill husband, four grown children, eight grandchildren, two jobs, and still I wrote penning six books in two years. So why now?

Yes, I've had a stroke, but I typed 37K words in a matter of months one-handed. Too many irons in the pot with too many distractions? Possibly. I can't focus as well as I used to. Lack of drive stemming from constant fatigue? That's another factor too. I used to be the type of person that operated very well on three or four hours of sleep at night. While awake I burned the candle at both ends and in the middle. Now it's more fizzle time. Maybe I'm paying for forty years of doing that.

Credit

Shouldn't the prospect of continuing in the traditional publishing rat race, be a bright spot? Many authors would kill for such an opportunity, wouldn't you? Perhaps I'm over thinking the whole situation. I have after all have been an indie author with my own schedule for the past two years and liked the unpressured (almost) lifestyle. If I worked hard at promotion, I saw an instant rise in my pocket in royalties within a month or quarterly time period. If I didn't work hard, the sales still trickled in. With traditional publishing, it's six months, 3 months prior to release and 3 months after. Sporadically after that and I got paid bi-annually until it goes out of print.

Is it fear? Is it insecurity? Is it laziness? Is this the end? I'm just wondering.