Come on, be
honest: are you ever paralyzed by fear? At the very least, do you ever
second-guess or doubt yourself? Life will always be full of challenges, no matter
what we’re pursuing. Therefore, life will always provide fertile ground for
fear. Personally, I battle fear continually; that’s my personality.Today, I
would like to share wisdom about overcoming fear from four respected fellow authors:
- Dash McCallen is a multi-genre author of fun, light stories.
- Sandra Kerns is the writer of many light-hearted, gripping romance/mysteries.
- Eeva Lancaster is one of my esteemed social-media mentors and an author of nonfiction and poetry.
- Shaheen Darr is a gifted poet who is currently branching out into novels.
Each of them
has pushed their way through huge challenges, such as illness, family tragedy, or
financial setbacks to find their own road to success in the often ego-battering
world of self-publishing. That takes TREMENDOUS courage, as I should know!
I am putting
their wonderful words down exactly as they said them, although I have left out
some of the words specifically related to writing. They are referring mainly to
overcoming fear relative to writing, yet their remarks also relate to
overcoming any kind of fear.
How can we Describe Fear?
Dash McCallen
Fear is a
dark spot in my soul. Fear of failure, to be specific. Such deep fear that I do
not submit my writings to contests and to self-publish is like climbing a
vertical wall.
We turn a corner and there is a boulder set in to a pothole and it is labeled “Fear”.
Self-sabotage is a regular thing as I stand and look back over the years.
************
Overcome Fear by Pushing Through It
Sandra Kerns
Do you know
how long it took my friends and sister to talk me into self-publishing? I actually
WON the first contest I entered. Well, that was back before self-publishing was
“acceptable” and the editor who requested it said, well, maybe if you change
this and this. So, I changed this and this and they still turned it down.
Obviously, I suck at writing. That’s what I thought for years, but I kept
torturing myself and writing more.
Anyways, that winning book underwent many, many rewrites. It is a part of my series that out-sells all my other books every month. So, I guess that editor should have picked me up, huh.
Yeah, that’s
what I tell myself now. Well, in between the I can’t believe anyone will buy
this. It’s terrible.
WHY do we
write? Because we must. Because something inside of us tells us to put the
words down so others can see them.
************
“What Does Not Destroy me Makes me Stronger.”
(Thank you, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche!)
Eeva Lancaster
Writing is
an act of courage.
Think of it
this way…You only live once. And it’s not gonna kill you…and what doesn’t kill you , will
make you better. :) What have you go to lose?
I think that we sabotage ourselves because we don’t
believe we deserve the good stuff. Because if we did believe that we deserve happiness, success,
whatever…we’d go for it. If we have to twist ourselves like a pretzel, we
would.
If you didn’t
fear failure, you’d have the books polished and be serious about it. Because it
would be unacceptable to you to fail. You would do what is needed to give the
book a good chance. You
attempt to, then you don’t. Like you’re hesitating. Maybe it’s fear of success,
not failure?
(Yes, I have
a degree on this. Master’s Degree on Failure.)
Writing is
an act of courage.
************
Embrace Difficulty
Shaheen Darr
I feel it is
through writing that the fear goes away. You can say what you want and create
characters that no one else can think about. It takes you to another dimension
of your brain where fear
really should have no place, throw it out. Love your writing…embrace it :))
My Conclusion
My four
esteemed colleagues are prime examples of how we can push through fears of any
kind in order to find our own brand of success. The message is
simple: keep pushing; you’ll eventually give birth to victory. (If
you think giving birth is an easy process, most any mother will be happy to
disabuse you of that notion, including me!)
How have you
pushed through fear to victory?
