Fear of Writing
by Milli
Thornton
[Editor's Note: While this article is
about the fear of writing, its insights and suggestions apply to other fears as
well.]
Is writing
supposed to be fun? Surely it's better to suffer. It will make our writing real,
give it depth and integrity.
If we're not going to suffer, we
should at least work hard. We should be disciplined. We should think about
productivity. A writer is not going to have a career to speak of unless he or
she is producing at least 1,000 words a day, right? It's really a number
crunching game, if you get right down to it. Or so the rumor
goes.
Every writer has a personal tale
about the hardships of writing. And we all know that writing is a lonely
business. Martin Myers made this sense of alienation adorably quotable when he
said, "First you're an unknown, then you write one book and you move up to
obscurity."
But this swallowing gulf is no
laughing matter. As we chart our descent into the netherworld of writing, honk
if you know the story already.
Outside, the sun is shining and
the robins are happily pulling up worms. Inside your snug little home you're
staring into the abyss. The terror of facing that empty page is only surpassed
by the numbness of your decomposing mind.
Moments ago, you were a lively
specimen of resourceful humanity. Moments ago, you were finding ways to speed
through your chores and your commitments in order to allow yourself some
precious writing time.
But now that you're seated in
front of your favorite writing implements, you uncover the bleak truth. You have
nothing to say. You are less inspired than the lowliest drone sorting microchips
on the assembly line. You are empty. Soulless. Mere space dust inhabiting a warm
body. You have no right to aspire to that auspicious title, 'writer'. Where did
you come up with the nerve to even think it?
OK, so you manage to convince your
primal brain stem that these negative messages are melodramatic and overblown.
You are not empty. You're not a zombie from the twilight zone. You even had an
idea while you were waiting in line at the drive-up bank and now you intend to
write it down. You're no lightweight.
In fact, you have some guts and
you plan to use them. How can you not be a writer? It's in your blood. It
permeates every neutron and every proton of your mortal being. It reaches all
the way to your higher self. Even your past lives were all spent as Egyptian
scribes or Atlantean poets.
Triumphantly, you break those
chains of oppression. You commit some tentative words to the paper. One line
follows another and voila! you have a paragraph.
You resist the urge to reread what
you've managed to get down. You forge ahead and one paragraph becomes two, then
three, then five. If the dog doesn't throw up and the phone doesn't ring, you
may even write two pages today. You're doing it! You're writing. You've defied
the laws of emptiness. You are a god of creation.
But the internal drag is taking
its toll. Even as you defeat inertia to get those valiant words down on paper or
typed onto your screen, you are faced with another self-evident truth: you're
boring. Your writing would put insomniacs to sleep. You've seen livelier writing
on the dishwashing liquid label that's peeling from the damp plastic bottle
under your kitchen sink.
The rush of inspiration you felt
in line at the bank is now in ashes on the page. You're embarrassed that you
ever bragged to your friends about being a writer. Bragging leaves you no room
to exit gracefully. Bragging leaves you with no pride and no way to resume a
normal life. If you give up now, your friends will know what a weakling you are
and they'll never let you live it down.
Why would anyone want to suffer
this way? You sit there -- dripping with failure, pungent with the sweat of your
fruitless labor. You realize that you go through this same horror scene every
time you try to write. You start out on an innocent high and then you degenerate
into a living hell.
When the hounds of hell finally
regurgitate you, you're limp with defeat. Your skin crawls with self-revulsion.
You look around you and observe the ordinary world. You can't help but notice
that your family and your friends are not being consumed from within by this
insidious tapeworm called writing. You long to veg out in front of the TV with
the kind of serenity you see others reveling in as their
birthright.
You look in the mirror and tell
yourself to get a life. You decide to exercise at the gym whenever the urge to
write strikes you next. That way you can put your nervous energy to good use,
instead of doing all that unhealthy introspection. Instead of agonizing like a
miser over what you have or haven't written.
The concept that writing can be
fun is ludicrous. Experience has proven this beyond a shred of doubt. Fun for
others, maybe, but never for you.
Beyond The Purge
It pays to be in the right
company. You'll be safe identifying with this story because I'm personally
acquainted with these same hellhounds that have been playing with your emotions.
I was not born having fun as a writer any more than you were, nor did I believe
-- until recently -- that fun was even possible. I followed the compulsion to
write because I had to, because it wouldn't go away, even when it was
chronically buried in apathy and depression.
I considered myself a failed
writer and even a fraud. I would go for long periods without writing anything.
Which -- as you may know yourself -- is a death unlike any other.
What caused these painful dry
spells where I would turn away from creative expression? It was fear of writing,
that disease of the heart that no medical doctor has diagnosed or even
recognized.
The disease may well be endemic
everywhere, but we don't have the statistics or the studies to prove it. People
are out there self-medicating against it. They're out there languishing in
writing limbo. Experiencing periods of remission, then sliding into paralysis
again.
Many people with this affliction
lead outwardly active lives. They may be writing books. They may even be
published authors. Others are out there in self-help mediums such as workshops
and writing groups. They are practicing physical therapy, reading their work out
loud in the weekly meetings, standing up to declare, 'I am an addict'. Writing
is still frightening but they are finding ways to cope. Discussing the symptoms
with others that understand this disease intimately can be therapeutic beyond
measure.
The question begs to be asked. Is
there a cure for fear of writing? Am I here to tell you've I've discovered the
antidote?
"Quick', you say. 'Spit it out! I
believe in faith healing! Heal me with your words!'
There Is No Cure
I am here to tell you there is no
cure for fear of writing, except to feel it and use it in your work. The fear is
part of the process and part of what deepens your cognition. The fear itself is
not the poison. The slow poison is the paralysis that results from trying to
clench around your fear and isolate it. You can't purge it like a cancerous
cell, unless you are prepared to lose an essential function. You can't purge
your fear and find a lasting cure because it's something that belongs to
you.
When your fear is embraced and
acknowledged as an integral part of you, it becomes transformative. It becomes a
moving energy that informs your work and gives you the courage to accept
yourself.
There is nothing I can tell you
that will do as much for you as your own process of embracing the fear. When you
empower your fear, you will see the myths drop away. Haven't you always been
told that if you 'buy into' fear, dire things will happen? You will become a
'negative' person. People will shun you. Your negativity will draw bad luck or
even accidents into your life.
This old wives' tale originates
from a simple but profound misunderstanding of fear. When the channels of what
could be or should be evolutionary fear are shut down, peoples' lives are
cramped and their potential has only limited energy to work with. Look around
you for a day or two and observe this happening. There are examples everywhere,
both within and without.
The fear itself is blamed for this
crippling effect, rather than the continual reflex act of shutting down the flow
of this energy. Fear has a bad name and we've been taught to control it or
expunge it from our lives. We can carry on the tradition and shoot the
messenger, or we can allow the fear to help us widen our
boundaries.
Learning to allow your fear to
vibrate is a surprising adventure. You will find beauty inside yourself that you
didn't believe could be there. You will grow to like yourself more. People will
want you around. Your experiences will bring you riches. And maybe best of all
-- you will take off as a writer.
This
article was excerpted with permission from
Milli Thornton's book "Fear of Writing", ©1999.
Published by Xlibris Corporation,
www.Xlibris.com
Info/Order book
About The
Author
MILLI THORNTON was born in the Unites States and
has been suffering from fear of writing for most of her life. She migrated to
Australia with her family at age twelve. After 25 years in her beloved
Australia, Milli returned to the United States. She is a recovering writer and
she follows a daily program of fun, irreverence, and muscular word therapy in
her ongoing struggle to live with her affliction. For more info, visit www.fearofwriting.com
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