daddy long-legs

The Guggenheim, Bilbao, Spain

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fear of failure: making a commitment to the writing life

For as long as I can remember I have written. Words have wept out of me in times of sadness and exploded from my soul in celebration. I remember sitting on window sills, laying in parks, musing over coffee in cafes, observing from dark corners of bars and always, always my notebook has been with me…
I know I must write. I get sick when I don’t write, sick of heart, sick of body, and sick of mind. Writing is a form of self-expression but mostly, for me, a kind of meditation and therapy. It keeps me balanced and healthy and, usually, happy.

And so now, after a 15 year love affair, I hope to make my mistress my wife… I want to confidently scribble “Writer” in that little profession box on a thousand banal forms…

The problem is I have NO CLUE how to go about it. Writing was always a dream but I have never had the faith in myself to make it a reality. I have always been scared… I mean, what if i suck?! What if I fail at the one thing that matters most?

As an avid collector of quotes and inspiration I have, for years now, had the following as a kind of mantra (although I strangely cannot recall where I got it from):
Courage is not the absence of fear, but the belief that something else is more important than fear.

And so, with that in mind, I have decided to throw myself out there and begin the epic quest to fulfill my dream, to be who I always dreamed I may one day be – a writer. I have started this blog as the first step in the process, to put my words out there and see how it feels, to express myself publicly, and also, I hope, to receive encouragement and advice from fellow writers who are ahead of me on the path, and perhaps inspire a few who have the same secret dream.

This is an open invitation – let’s open a dialogue on writing and the writers life, provide advice and inspiration and outlet to the thousands (millions?) of aspiring writers out there; and, though we are afraid, let’s have the courage to believe that something else is more important than that fear, and that is the simple and perfect beauty of words on the page expressing something deep and true within us all.

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