I’m amazed at the level of fear I feel in relation to my creativity.
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I wrapped up last semester with my usual “Personal Trimesterly Review” (I talk about the PTR in a video from Pacific Grove). It was a fairly rough semester, especially toward the end. The big fires in Northern California, while they didn’t affect me directly (for which I’m grateful!), wreaked an indirect havoc: the level of smoke forced the campus to close for two weeks; and since I teach online, a few of my students were either affected directly, or had close family who were. So I pushed some due dates back, accepted all kinds of late work, and worked double-time for the last few weeks of the semester.
Since the PTR at the end of the Fall semester more or less coincides with the New Year, the decisions I make look at lot like New Year’s resolutions. I like to think they’re not—I long ago resolved to abandon such folly—but these first couple weeks after the PTR aren’t looking very good.
I already wrote about the idea I had of focusing on short fiction for awhile, as a way to build some skills, self-confidence, and momentum. Sadly, I haven’t written a damn word of fiction since then. So the big project I decided to take on, as a result of the PTR process, was to write 25 short stories over the upcoming year. “The Year of Living Short Fiction,” I decided to call it, for some reason.
A story every couple weeks? For a professional writer, this wouldn’t be that big of a deal. I mean, Dean Wesley Smith sets challenges for himself that make this look positively enemic; his latest is ten novels in a hundred days. Sure, he’s had a couple false starts, but even those false starts have been productive…. And if he can take on personal challenges like that (this is far from his first), surely a story every two weeks can’t be that hard?
And yet: I am really afraid.
I have no idea what I’m afraid of. I have ideas. I didn’t commit to showing the work to anyone. I didn’t even say I was going to write good stories; the point is more to focus on process rather than product.
But the fear is there. Last week, I sat down to my computer to start the first story and, suddenly, felt very tired. A twenty-minute power nap will solve that! … only it turned into two and half hours of setting and resetting alarms until I had to get up to meet some other commitment.
And a week later, I still haven’t started that story.
I planned all week to write about this fear, here on the blog, but I’m only now getting around to it. Apparently, I wasn’t willing to face it yet.
Steven Pressfield, of The War of Art fame, would call this Resistance. And I would agree; I find his description of the problem insightful, even helpful. Unfortunately, his solutions don’t resonate with me.
Acknowledging the problem seems a good first step. I’m scared of something. It’s palpable and paralyzing. I am sure it has something to do with the fixed mindset I wrote about in that earlier post—though, as I think is clear, I’m not sure what the solution to that is.
And announcing my intention—The Year of Living Short Fiction—seems a good second step. Perhaps the fear of failing to meet a public commitment that will outweigh whatever nebulous, irrational fear I’m struggling with.
PS: If you’re struggling to produce creative work, I recommend Pressfield’s book, The War of Art. Though its recommendations don’t resonate much with me, I know that it’s made a difference for a lot of struggling writers. It’s worth checking out.