January 3, 2021

Welcome and Happy New Year! I started this blog on my 60th birthday.  My goal was to build a platform for self-expression and encouraging others as I explored this decade of my life.  I planned to publish twice a month.  It was a “flash in the pan” – a “sudden spasmodic effort that accomplishes nothing.” In short, a complete failure! 

Try as I might, I just couldn’t bring myself to write and publish my work.  Instead, I spent hours studying topics to write about.  I spent money on courses and books about how to write and build an audience.  I went to seminars and talked about wanting to write.  I hired coaches and explored the ins and out of a lot of things –except why I couldn’t press the “publish” button.  The result was NOTHING!  In the 4 four years since my launch, not a single piece was published.

REFRAME AND OVERCOME FEAR

Why?  The first and obvious reason was FEAR (False Evidence Appearing Real) –  fear of revealing myself as a writer.  Fear of criticism, and of internet hate mail.  Fear of going viral, and fear of no one ever reading a single word I write.  Fear of embarrassment.  Fear of being discovered (and of not being discovered). In the end, fear kept me from posting any of the many posts I wrote. 

Instead of allowing my imagined fears to continue to hold my dream hostage, I reframed FEAR to a new acronym: Face Everything And Rise, and used it to propel myself beyond my fear.  Instead of convincing myself that the evidence behind my fear is false, I decided to face it, accept it, and rise above it. 

TAKE APPROPRIATE, CONSISTENT ACTION

The second impediment to producing my writing was ACTION –  For a writer, the action is obvious – writers must write.  Writers make a habit of writing.  I have a day job, so action requires setting routines and practices to find daily opportunities to write.  Morning?  Evening? Lunchtime? 

I experimented and found a slice of time in the evening after work, and after dinner.  I calendared the appointment with myself, just before bed, and committed to a tiny writing goal of 50 words a day.  Over time this morphed into a morning pages practice of 750 words a day. This month, I’m committed to taking action and writing 500 words a day toward my writing projects.

DON’T WAIT FOR YOUR UNIQUE VOICE

The third problem keeping me from writing was VOICE –writers write in a unique way -how did I want to express myself?  A writing instructor talked about finding “voice”- and then left me on the road, without much of a clue about where I would find my voice.  A writer without a voice is SILENT.  So I went looking for mine. I compared myself to others – some write with a familiar, homey voice, others in an academic voice, with authority backed by copious research. Still others possess the voice of the sage, preacher, or activist. 

In looking for a voice to imitate, I finally figured it out! Voice comes as you write – as you write more and more, your voice and style develop!  Voice is a product of writing.  If I write, the VOICE will come. If you speak, if you develop, if you make music or widgets- your unique market presence will develop as you take action, experiment, and grow.

NO AUDIENCE, NO MATTER

The fourth reason I could not write was that I had not identified an AUDIENCE.  There is a conundrum posed by philosopher George Berkeley, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” So it is for a writer without an audience.  Who exactly am I writing for?  What are their interests, concerns, and problems?  Some writers have an avatar of their ideal audience to remind them who they are writing for.  I wonder if I’m in their audience avatar and if they would be in mine? Is there another road that I need to travel to find my “tribe?” Perhaps, but one thing is for sure, a fearful, inactive, silent, non-writer will never find the audience that is waiting to hear what she has to say.

I know I’m not the first writer to have these problems so I’m in good company.  Almost every blogger I follow has admitted to facing fear and trepidation about writing and publishing.  They admit they have felt insignificant and unqualified to write about the subject that was their niche.  But they decided that the FEAR could be transformed and defeated by ACTION. They learned that consistent action develops a keen, unique VOICE, that speaks volumes to their peculiar, hungry AUDIENCE that reads, responds, and benefits from their observations, insights, and encouragement.

How about you?  As you push into the first quarter of this year is there something that you just never got around to doing last year because you were hampered by fear?  Did you start a project, business, or side gig, but quickly became sidetracked by inertia and inaction?  Was there a project that you just couldn’t start because it didn’t feel like it was uniquely yours – it didn’t have your voice?  Maybe you have a business with few or no customers or clients – you lack an audience?  What can you do to push beyond these four impediments to moving ahead?  I’d love to hear your story in the comments below.

Have a great week!

Grace