Scared

My Child Self has been scared recently…

Lately, my Creative Heart has been longing to write stories. I’ve always written, but over the past 30 years or so, most of my writing has been non-fiction — either work- or education-related. I started writing fiction again at the beginning of the year by entering the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge. I enjoyed it immensely, and though I didn’t place, I loved my story. Despite all the positive emotions I felt, my writing practice fell apart. I entered a couple more, small contests, wrote daily for about a month, and slowly started the process of stopping.

I stopped putting effort into the practice. I cut writing time short, gave up in the middle of a piece if it started to feel hard, didn’t do any research, and I avoided seeking feedback. I labeled my writing as another silly hobby, and then I put the notebook away.

I told myself that I was lazy (a message that I’ve recycled numerous times over the years), but I knew that I was missing the truth.

So what could it be?

You probably already know the answer, but I’ll give it to you anyway.

Writing fiction pings my fear button. For some folks, this fear button might be specifically related to rejection. For me, while fear of rejection is certainly a piece of my personal puzzle, it was playing a smaller part here. My Child Self’s biggest fear was that…