"Fear of Writing" - The Cautionary Writer
We've all heard of Writer's Block. As a writer we are all too familiar with that feeling of staring at a blank page. But that's not what I want to write about here. I'm talking about something much more horrific and frightening, truly a writer's most fearful thought -- and that is the feeling that your idea is just... not... good... enough.
As a writer, we all have our notepads, or Word docs titled simply "Ideas", or some other tool (Woody Allen uses napkins at restaurants, Larry David has a little writing pocketbook) to jot down ideas -- funny things we see, or vague storylines, that we want to keep for some future time when we are ready to start that new screenplay or novel.
But is that idea good enough to spend weeks, months, sometimes years cultivating? I know I've had many ideas for screenplays (and now I'm writing a novel -- I'll talk about that now and again because I'm only 30% done, when I should be 70% done!), but every time I go back to writing, whatever I am writing, I say to myself, "Is this story GOOD ENOUGH?"
Then I ask, "Good enough for whom? Me? The audience?? My mom???" All three different answers here.
Once I sat in on a writing seminar and a well-known writer said if everyone in the room were handed the same one line for a story with the same plot and the same characters, you'd end up with a hundred completely different stories. This is very true.
Every time I sit and write, I ask myself "Is this line good enough?" "Is this character funny enough?" "Is this storyline interesting enough?" If the answer is no, what do I do? I put it down and come back to it the next day. I tweak a few words, make a few adjustments, alter a few things, pepper in one funny word, and guess what? All of a sudden, it is good enough!
I find that if I don't give up on that idea, if I continue to write, if I put it down and come back to it the next day, I can make it really, really good -- maybe even great.
So, I don't call this Writer's Block. Not for me. I have experienced it, yes, all writers do. But being 'fearful of what I am writing is not good enough...' yeah -- all the time. But writing is like any other artistic endeavor -- you have to work at it and mold it and play with it and explore it to make it actually look (in this case, read) like a piece of art.
So is that fear good?
YES!
It is a necessity for all writers. You have to able to look at what you wrote yesterday and say proudly, "Boy, that sucks eggs. I mean, really, that's bad." But that is part of the process.
So be fearful -- be VERY FEARFUL when you write and more so, when you READ WHAT YOU WROTE. Because that is the only way what you write will some day be great.
