Fear is Part of the Process

Photo by Jaqueline Fritz on Unsplash

One of the advantages of doing a writing sprint like NaNoWriMo is that, if you stick with the plan of writing 50K words in 30 days, it forces you to blow past any fears or doubts. You don’t have time to worry. You just have to hit your word goal, day after day.  

Whether you’re currently doing NaNo or not, though, fear will eventually creep up on you. Why? Because you’re doing work that matters to you. Anything that matters is going to be a risk: Risk of failure, risk of people laughing at you, even a risk of having a big success and then not being able to replicate it (or feeling like a fraud – like it’s just a fluke).  

Fear is not fun. It can be paralyzing. Procrastination is driven by fear. Easier to avoid writing altogether rather than sit down and face the page. What if I don‘t know what to say? What if my writing is terrible? What if I never get any readers? What if I’m wasting my time? What if my friends read it and they hate me?... the mind comes up with a million reasons why it would be a much better idea to watch tv, or play video games, or do basically anything but write.  

In Buddhism, we’re taught to sit with uncomfortable feelings. We don’t try to push them away. We breathe them in, really noticing them. How they feel physically in the body. All the nuances of a particular emotion. We notice that an emotion brings up a stream of thoughts that do nothing but feed the emotion, in an endless spiral. 

One thing we notice about fear, or any other emotion (and its accompanying litany of thoughts) is that it goes away. It arises, generates a flurry of thoughts, and then... what’s for lunch? We’re like that dog in the movie Up, that would love to pay attention, but – Squirrel!  

Once we connect over and over with fear in that way, we see how unreal it is. It is usually based on some story we tell ourselves. The story may be a fantasy, or it may have arisen from some past experience that we are now living over and over, even though the person who said our writing was crap has long gone out of our lives.  

For this reason, even if you don’t have a formal meditation practice, it can be a good idea to sit with your fear when it comes up, and really connect with it. Don’t push it away, or tell yourself to ignore it. What is it really about? You can even journal about it. Set a timer for 15 minutes and just let it rip. What I’m really afraid of is... I guarantee, once you give your brain the virtual megaphone, it will shut up pretty quickly. Oh, I guess this fear isn’t really anything solid. I’d better just get to work. 

The thing is, fear doesn’t go away. It’s not a battle you win once and then you’re done, and never have to deal with it again. It comes back every time you think about trying something new, or putting your work out there – or even just writing for one single day. 

Fear is not your enemy. Fear is energy. One of my favorite new podcasts is The Well: A Podcast About Creative Inspiration with Branan Edgens and Anson Mount, and Episode 51 with Michael Rosenbaum, The Power of Fear, speaks exactly to this. He talks about taking creative risks, and doing what you love just for the love of it, and the joy that can result. But you have to get beyond that fear. You have to be willing to experience failure, and the stress of not knowing what you’re doing or if it will work out.  

As one of the hosts says at the end of the episode,

“Honesty, for an artist, is not a conditional relationship. It’s a constant off of which we check ourselves continually.”

That really resonates with me, since fear is based not off honesty, but lies. Fear tells you you’re no good, and will never be any good. Fear tells you success is not possible. Fear says that even if you are successful once, you’ll never fool everybody again. Fear tells you it’s not worth the pain of struggling toward your goals.  

Think of it as play. Work hard, but don’t take everything so seriously. Use your experience to get better. Experiment. Iterate. Have fun. Lean into the fear, understand its place in the creative process. Embrace it. Don’t tell yourself fear is bad, or wrong. It’s a natural part of the process, and it will evaporate as you do the work – and then come back the next time you take a risk. 

Everything good happens on the other side of the fear. But the only way out is through. You have to be honest with yourself, to keep stretching, keep doing the work you love – beyond the fear. 

If you’re interested in further reading and inspiration, two of my favorite classic books on this subject are: 

Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking – David Bayles and Ted Orland. A classic worth reading and rereading. Every page is worth a highlight. It’s especially helpful in those days when fear overwhelms you and you feel like giving up, or you’re depressed because it’s been so long since you’ve written you don’t know how to begin again. “Quitting is fundamentally different from stopping. The latter happens all the time. Quitting happens once. Quitting means not starting again – and art is all about starting again.” 

The War of Art – Steven Pressfield. This is full of pithy chapters on all the aspects of Resistance that can overwhelm you. As Pressfield says, Resistance is fear, masked with rationalization. “I don’t have time.” “I’ll do it later.” “It doesn’t make sense to start that project now, it’s a busy time at work.” The focus is on overcoming Resistance by “turning pro” - having the attitude of writing as something that you show up for, ready or not willing or not, until the work is done. Feel the fear and do it anyway.