Hello, my lovely Creators!
Earlier today I was watching a movie called Julie & Julia, and I discovered an interesting quote. If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend it.
Anyway, the movie involves a well-known cook named Julia Child and a woman, Julie, attempting to cook her way through Julia’s cookbook. It’s one of my favorite movies, but I don’t know a whole lot about Julia Child. I decided to remedy that today by looking her up and stumbled on a quote that worked well with what I’ve been thinking lately. She said, “The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking, you’ve got to have a what-the-hell attitude.” It got me to thinking about myself and how I approach my writing, and I think one of the things that hold me back in my writing is fear. Amongst other things.
Most writers seem to struggle with fear. Fear that they aren’t good enough and, oddly enough, fear that they are good enough. So many writers put their heart and soul into their work and send it out into the world hoping that it will resonate with others. There’s always that crushing sense that no one will read what you write and when they do they’ll think it’s trash.
No worries to those that read my posts, I have no intention of guilt-tripping any of you. Your opinions are your own, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I’m not one to say that my writing is any good, but I also don’t think it’s terrible. Perhaps unpolished is a more accurate description.
I have those same fears, and for me, it’s also the fear of completely immersing myself in work and just getting lost in it. I want to be able to do that, but the outside world is always calling. A lot of the time it speaks of things like bills and debt. Things that require you to have a stable income. It makes me feel like I’ll never be able to dive in the way I want to in my craft. Being a writer was something that I always dreamed of, and it’s still a dream of mine, but it seems like it has drifted a bit further downstream over the years. Believe me; I have no illusions that I would be able to live by my writing entirely. Many writers know this, there isn’t a lot of money in writing. Don’t let those bestsellers fool you.
I wish I had all the answers to these fears and doubts. All I can think is that somehow I have to find a way to dive in any way. I have to adopt a “What the hell” attitude.
Now I bet you’re wondering where I’m going with this post and really it’s just me airing my own fears. Something that I think a lot of people don’t do. It’s one of those things that people don’t like to face and I think it’s important to force myself to look at my fears. It’s how I want to write, forcing others to look at the things that we’d rather not look at directly. So I leave you all with these thoughts to mull over and I leave you with another bit of flash fiction.
If only I had the chance. The things that I would show you, things that I would say, it would only make you mad. You’d never be able to look at the stars the same or forget what it means to stand in the rain. How falling in love is more than just a simple game. It’s finding the one who inspires you, makes you want to do more, and lets you be who you are. I’d tell you what it really means to feel that way. I didn’t have that chance, besides, it would only make you mad anyway.
100 Words A Story 