What Happens When We Get Scared?
This week I was emailing with a former journalist who told me that if he cared what people thought of him, he’d have never gone into journalism.
And that . . .? That is a lot of confidence. And a lot of self-possession.
Last night on our podcast we were talking about dreams, which morphed into a talk about nightmares, which made me realize that I don’t usually have nightmares.
It all made me think about fear. Nightmares are obviously scary things. And being worried about what people think about you? That’s pretty scary, too, right? That one deals with shame.
A lot of the writers I’m working with are dealing with a lot of fear right now.
Things they are afraid of:
- What if I’m wasting my time and nobody likes my book?
- What if I’m a sucky writer and everyone is lying to me that I’m not?
- What if I fail?
- What if people judge me because I fail?
- What if nobody buys my book?
- What if I get a bad review?
- What if I ONLY get bad reviews?
Those are writer fears, right? But those fears can translate into a lot of other occupations, too.
