The storm clouds ahead provide cover for a dark force that has one goal in mind; it is to send us back from where we came. It’s the villain in disguise, the misrepresentation of all that is good, and the killer of dreams. It is fear, the dark force’s most powerful weapon, and it‘s not afraid to use it.
Fear comes disguised in several forms designed for the purpose of stopping you before you ever begin your writing journey. There is the all-too common fear of failure that you first encountered in elementary school when you were afraid to tell that girl or boy that you liked them. There is fear of success that mysteriously rides beneath the ocean‘s surface on the back of its partner, guilt, with plans of punching small holes in your ship so you go down slowly. Finally, there is the ultimate fear, that of the unknown. This is the fatal blow that either stops many writers from ever beginning their journey, or sends them plummeting to the depths of the sea soon after they do. The dark force will be relentless in its use of fear against you. Despite such a bombardment, the writer will always be the one who determines the outcome.
As a writer, you’ll encounter the fear of failure daily. The easiest way to get past such fear is to change your outlook. Success is a direct result of failure. You must come to grips with the relationship between the two if you’re going to make it, not only in the publishing industry, but in life. You have two choices when you receive “rejection.” You can let “rejection” chip away at your will to succeed until it’s finally gone, upon which you give up all together, or you can see “rejection” as a step toward success. How can this be? It’s only natural to feel down when you’re told that your work isn’t good enough. Remember, you have to swim down the murky river before you can get to the clear, blue sea. Sometimes the murky river is long, but the only way you won’t get to the sea is by quitting. So, the only way to get to where we’re going is to set our course into the storm and engage the dark force head on, an aggressive course, but one it will never expect.
In the business of writing, you want to be the one to determine your course. The dark force uses the fear of failure against you so you choose a safer course, one which it controls. Making aggressive decisions counters such fear. You should want distributors, artists, and bookstores coming to you for business instead of you cowering to their terms. By them coming to you, you gain an upper hand when it comes to negotiating a business arrangement. The best defense is always a good offense. Taking an aggressive course will offset some of the stress fear tries to put on your shoulders. However, it’s important not to be so aggressive that you become reckless. The dark force will be counting on you to overshoot. Don’t give it any help.
The fear to succeed can be equally as frustrating. Let’s say a family member or good friend is a writer. They’ve been writing for years with little monetary success or social acclaim. You write something that becomes successful immediately. Will they take offense? This is where conscience can stand in the way of what you’re trying to achieve. You can’t allow forces that you have no control over to act as barriers to success. You don’t alter your course to avoid the submarine that you can’t see. You have to take your chances. You can win the battle against the fear of success by not allowing your visions of success to get too far ahead of your ship. Ground yourself in reality. Realistically, most family members and friends will be very proud of your success. If anything, they may turn to you for advice and support, or even use you as inspiration to work harder toward their own goals.
The most common and frightening type of fear is the fear of the unknown. Its presence surrounds and penetrates every pore of your ship, mind, and heart. Unlike the other types of fear that can merely wound you, the fear of the unknown is the ultimate manifestation of whatever force inside you can be used to derail your dreams. The fear of the unknown is out to sink your ship. What if I can’t pay my bills? What if I become famous and my name is splattered all over the tabloids? Still worse, what if nothing happens at all? The fear of the unknown can appear in just about any form, even disguised as something as beautiful as love. The only way to overcome it is to will your way through it. Once you overcome it, you can actually use its own unyielding power against the dark force.
Simply because the clouds on the horizon are dark from your vantage point, it doesn’t mean the storm ahead is terrible. A tremendous reward may await you on the other side. The only way you’ll know is by going through it with determination and will. The unknown is as equally positive as it is negative. It is your perception of it that decides how you face it. By not dealing with it, you won’t be able to pay your bills. You won’t have to worry about fame and tabloids because no one will know your name. The one certainty is that nothing will happen at all. The choice is obvious. It’s why you came on the journey.
We maintain our course toward the darkness and beyond because we’re determined not to give in to the invisible barriers the dark force of the writer‘s world wants us to believe lay in our path. The dark force wants us to believe fear is one of those barriers. We know otherwise. Fear is a natural, psychological emotion that we manufacture within ourselves that should be used as inspiration to conquer the obstacles that we know exist for a fact. Like the old saying, “good can’t exist without evil,” the gratification of success wouldn’t exist without the emotion of fear. They are bound together, and it’s our job as writers to keep them bound by not turning back on our journey. That’s not to say that the water ahead will be calmer now that we know how to deal with fear. The dark force has many other methods for sending us off course, and it will use each and every one until it has achieved its objective, or we’ve reached our destination. The race has begun.
As our ship closes in on the storm, something appears on the horizon. We can’t make out exactly what it is. Some say it’s another ship. Others say it’s a monster. Is it possible that it’s both? Or is it the dark force’s attempt to confuse our perception of the writer’s world we dream about with the reality of the writer’s world around us? The only way we’ll know is to persevere. We determine for ourselves what it turns out to be because as business people, we control our course, and by controlling our course, we control the outcome of any battle the dark force may wage against us.
