I used Grammarly to grammar check this post, because school starts in less than two weeks - who has time to proofread?!
In June I signed up for Teachers Write, a free summer writing program with prompts and advice and feedback from authors and other writers and teachers. For the first week, I stayed with every day's activities. Then we left for a vacation, and I thought, "I'll pick it up when we get home."
I took my writer's notebook with me on the trip. I even got a story idea that I jotted down so I wouldn't forget. And I wrote in a travel journal while we were gone. I kept track of all the things we did while on vacation. When we got home I saw all the Facebook notices about what I missed from Teachers Write, but I wasn't ready to dive in again. I was "still on vacation."
Two weeks later, I could no longer cite the "I'm still on vacation" excuse. If I'm honest with myself, I'm not writing - and not reading about writing - because I'm scared....
.... scared to sit down and try this story idea and find out I can't pull together more than a paragraph.
.... scared to wrestle with writing or planning - do I dive in and see where things go or do I outline a plan?
.... scared to write about things that are tense or that scare me
.... scared to find out I can't write fiction
.... scared to find out that what I do finally write just stinks
Writing is fear for me right now. Jon Acuff would tell me to "punch fear in the face." I guess it's time to dive back in and see if fear is ready for a pounding.
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