Checking in 22—12.11.20

Hi guys.

The deadline for the Writers of the Future contest is coming up at the end of the month and I am starting to feel a little freaked out about finishing. Submitting to the contest is important to me because I haven’t ever gotten a piece of fiction writing completed to the point that I feel comfortable showing it to someone else. I need to prove to myself that I can do it by kicking my own ass and getting something turned in. Having my fiction judged is a huge step for me. I drive myself a little crazy sometimes because it’s not like this is the very first time someone will be reading something I wrote.

I hold a master’s degree, so I’ve published a book and had a committee of four people sign off on its quality to earn my degree. In the pursuit of that degree, I had to write dozens and dozens of papers and give lectures and presentations. I didn’t get paid to do them, but, obviously, I had a vested interest in producing quality work. I’m a relatively intelligent person with decent reasoning skills, a talent for research, and twelve years (don’t ask) of practice and training to produce good (some great) academic work. Non-fiction is easy for me now. I have every confidence I can produce consistent good results.

All of those works I just talked about were non-fiction and research based. Many required me to report facts and then form an opinion or conclusion based on those facts. They took effort to write. Hours and hours of judging which words to use and how to logically form my arguments. Many more hours in editing. But the emotional toll was practically nonexistent. They didn’t wrench at my heart and soul. They didn’t make me laugh out oud or cry in sympathy. They didn’t make me feel guilty for the horrible thing I was about to inflict on an imaginary person. And they didn’t make me question my own inner thoughts and morals on some of the shadier/taboo things I write about. Moreover, I only had to please one, or in the case of my thesis 4, people at a time. If that person didn’t agree with me, or like what I had written, in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t a big deal.

None of those works dealt with all the scary-leave-it-in-the-dark-and-don’t-poke-at-it things. None of those works had the potential to stab me in the squishy, vulnerable bits.

Writing fiction is a completely different animal.

What is it that I write about which is so scary to release out into the world for judgment? Sex, love, pain, fantasies, kinks, violence, hatred…you know…all the usual suspects. That’s not the scary part. People have been writing those topics since humans could write. The part that makes it scary for me is that the words I write are based on my personal take on those things. How I see them. What they mean to me. Or don’t mean to me. My readers see my understanding and thoughts through my characters. My characters can’t be aware of something that I am not aware of or that I can’t imagine. It’s all coming out of my head. So, if I talk about BDSM, you know I’ve thought about BDSM. If I talk about prostitution or drugs or murder…yep I’ve thought about them too. The same goes for all the good stuff, but let’s be honest. The taboo, scary, messy stuff Is just so much more interesting and potentially embarrassing isn’t it? Anything I write is a little window into my messy, neurotic, chaotic, private inner thoughts. These are not things I usually fling about in the daylight.

I have said it before, and I will say it again. It is terrifying to put all this out there. It is terrifying to let yourself be vulnerable and open to attack like that. Especially if you are a somewhat private, introverted person like I am.

I constantly wrestle with this. Even in these check-ins. But that is all part of being a writer (or so I’ve been told). If I am a writer, all these things are part and parcel of the gig.

For all the writers out there, do you have any fears associated with writing?

For all the non-writers, did you think this would be a concern of a writer?