The spirals of fear.

Since I've started this slow-moving journey I've been trying to wrap my brain around things that people want to read about. The popular blogs seem to be about food, fashion, crafting -- things that I follow along with and have nothing new to add, but do take recommendations from.  I keep finding that every time I write something ... I delete it. I do not trust that I have something worthwhile to say. 

I have not really shared this writing trial and I'm finally admitting that I've been waiting to see if I do have anything to say, or that maybe those few that I have shared with might show encouragement to the process. I wonder why I need that encouragement.  It's as though I need to perfect my writing, and ultimately myself, before I really allow anyone to share this with me.  But no one wants to share with someone holding back and I am wondering what is really holding me back from expressing my fears and my dreams or passions, to anyone listening?

I've realized that it's fear. Fear that I really don't have anything worthwhile to share. Fear of embarrassing myself. Fear that I will not find what I'm searching for.  Fear that I won't be able to develop my soul into it's whole.  Fear that maybe I really am just a cheese-ball chic who wears her heart on her sleeve, feels too much, over-analyzes everything and always doubts herself.  It is a panic button of self-doubt and no way to be if I want to instill myself as a writer and one day an author.

I need to write with what I'm good at, from the heart and wearing all my emotions out in writing.  I used to be able to find the words that truly flowed through any emotion and I want that to fill me again.  My background is in creative writing and the techniques that I learned will need to be refreshed and the soul-searching anguish will have to be pulled from the depths and absorbed into language.
 
I was reading back on a good friend's blog and realized how right he was to reference this in helping to find just what he needed, and what I've now found inspiration in. So I share both of them with you and hope that he doesn't mind: 

You’ve got to sell your heart, your strongest reactions, not the little minor things that only touch you lightly, the little experiences that you might tell at dinner. This is especially true when you begin to write, when you have not yet developed the tricks of interesting people on paper, when you have none of the technique which it takes time to learn. When, in short, you have only your emotions to sell…But literature, even light literature, will accept nothing less from the neophyte. It is one of those professions that wants the “works.” You wouldn’t be interested in a soldier who was only a little brave.

F. Scott Fitzgerald in response to a story sent to him by the daughter of a family friend and aspiring author (Full Letter).

 
It may be poetry, it may be a comical rant or something that has inspired insight (or hindsight), but whatever form the words come out in, I hope them to be honest and moving, and maybe even a little jacked up.


Do you have something to share? Let me know!