On October's Ghosts
and attempting to beat my "fear of failure"
So, let’s state the obvious. I’m late to the party with this newsletter - so late, in fact, that my next month’s newsletter comes out on Sunday!
I was on holiday during my usual window for writing for this newsletter, and then, suddenly, poof! Time flew right by with a very busy month once I got back. I passed my driving test (crucial now that I don’t live in a city within walking distance of everything!), buckled down and wrote a good few tens of thousands of words for my book, and read three fantastic short story collections (Hag, The Folk Tales of Scotland, and The Anthology of Scottish Folk Tales). And, as we all have to do, juggled the usual madness of life.
In hindsight, I should’ve written this pre-holiday. But, I like to get right to the end of the month and reflect on the past 4 or 5 weeks. I enjoy the ritual of it, the quiet time I spend considering what I’d like to share. What I’ve learned. What I’m looking forward to. What’s got me smiling. So on this occasion, October’s newsletter doesn’t include all the lovely usual extras, but if you hold on until Sunday, November’s includes these things - I promise!
Since I’m so very late with this newsletter and already thinking about November’s, it didn’t make sense to me to write this in the form it normally takes on. So, enjoy something a little… different. Perhaps, encouraging. Not quite inspirational. But at the very least, honest.
During my accidental newsletter hiatus, I realised something a little hard to swallow about myself. I’ve always known that yes, I wanted to be a writer. If you’d get me just a little tipsy or you met me for the first time and we skipped over all those small-talk points about work-from-home set-ups and how-you-knew so-and-so, you’d peel out that core desire of mine. When I build characters for my stories, I like to do an exercise around their fears and desires - and it’s never taken much for people to hear my own. Ask me my hopes and dreams and there the answer would be.
I’ve always been a writer. It’s been my job too. But really, what I meant, was an author. To share the stories that have long burned a hole inside of me. I never in a million years thought this far-off dream would be something that would happen so soon in my life. I hoped it would happen. One day. A shimmering, hard-to-picture, one day. Something better not to focus on, not to look at too much, like staring at the sun.
But here’s the bit I didn’t really want to admit to myself. Now that this Big Dream I’d put on a pedestal - a maybe someday kind-of-thing - was happening, I found myself doing something I’ve been pretty ashamed of.
Procrastinating. Shutting down. Finding myself creatively paralysed.
I’ve always been the person to procrastinate deadlines. I work best under the utmost pressure of an impending deadline, the true panic of a 24-hour countdown, but I’ve never been good at planning months ahead for a huge project. For the last few months, I’ve written, somewhat. But I’ve also researched instead of written. I’ve read instead of drafted. I’ve sat in utter panic, staring at the screen all alone, looking at the words I’ve written, shuffling them around the page. Afraid to write anymore.
I know I’m not the only person guilty of letting fear of failure hold them back, but it’s been such a slow-growing fear that I didn’t realise that’s what it was. Throughout much of summer, I found myself juggling lots of different types of work while “making the most of summer”. Scotland’s so wet, after all, I might as well make the most of the sunny days while they’re here, right? My dreams of days spent writing weren’t panning out well, but it was all okay. I told myself that even if I didn’t stick to my original book writing plan, that was fine, because the colder autumn and winter months would be the time “I’d really get my head down”. All was well.
Right?
Well, summer melted away oh-so quickly, so very full and marvellous, the kind of summer I’ve long aspired for - one where the days end with your hair coated in sea salt and your body warm with the sun.
And again, I reminded myself not to worry. “The shorter September days are when you’ll really make some true headway.”
And then, just like the height of summer, September melted away from me oh-so quickly, a blur of wild swims and beach trips and woodland walks and boat days, picking brambles for waffles, eating chantarelles we found on our adventures, and finally, cosying up in the evenings and feeling autumn approach. Work took hold. Life was life. And life is busy. My enormous plans for getting my book entirely written by the end of October - leaving lots of time to edit before the manuscript is due - started to look more and more unrealistic.
The ghosts of October crept out in their trio to poke and prod me. Anxiety, harassed me with the distinct cries of what if! and made my chest feel tight and my tummy all butterflies. Worry, in a fluffy blanket of worst-case scenarios feeling oh-so sorry for herself reminded me that perhaps no one will ever read my book or ever like it - or maybe even I’ll wind up hating it. (Worry’s always been a bit melodramatic.) And finally, a gripping Fear hovered just to the side, striking on days when I could least do with her showing up, gnawing away at me while I tried to get words on the page.
These ghosts liked to whisper all their concerns. What if the book isn’t good? What if no one likes it? What if I look back at what I’ve written a few years down the line and hate it? What if– what if– what if–
Thankfully, three months out from the manuscript deadline for my book, it’s crunch time. No more time to worry and overthink everything. No more trudging through words I’ve already written questioning if they’re good enough. I’ve given the middle finger to my worries and anxieties and fears and find myself gloriously free of all expectations. It’s time to just DO.
Less thought, more action.
These ghosts may get a seat in the writing room, but they don’t get a say. For me, writing has always been about hearing that fear and telling it, politely, that it’s got ever right to be afraid - but it won’t stop me.
Since that realisation earlier this month, it’s not as though all my anxieties about this book and my writing have disappeared, but perhaps I’ve accepted them for what they are. Let the ghosts be ghosts - in the room, but not really at the party. I’m not banishing them, but they’re only getting to watch from now on. And, since then, the words have flowed far more easily.
Writing has long been a process I can’t quite describe or define. An elusive experience. The magic of it that unfolds at times, the desire to write so great that the fear of it being perfect doesn’t really matter anymore. Sometimes, writing simply occurs, and when I reach that joyous moment where I can’t do anything but write, it’s true bliss. An exhaustive, joyous, emotional process. One where bedtime must be forgotten and the story swallows me whole, words spilling out in an unstoppable fashion - the editor in me is shoved to the side and the creative takes the reigns.
Elizabeth Gilbert talks about this so gorgeously and uniquely in her Ted Talk on ‘Your Elusive Creative Genius’:
And what I have to sort of keep telling myself when I get really psyched out about that is don’t be afraid. Don’t be daunted. Just do your job. Continue to show up for your piece of it, whatever that might be. If your job is to dance, do your dance. If the divine, cockeyed genius assigned to your case decides to let some sort of wonderment be glimpsed, for just one moment through your efforts, then “Olé!” And if not, do your dance anyhow. And “Olé!” to you, nonetheless.
I believe this and I feel that we must teach it. “Olé!” to you, nonetheless, just for having the sheer human love and stubbornness to keep showing up.
No matter how many ghosts may clamber into the room with you, waving at you your past mistakes, telling you of fortunes unlikely to become, I hope you look at them for what they are and allow yourself the opportunity to write nonetheless. To make, nonetheless. To create, nonetheless.
And maybe, just maybe, the ghosts might get a little less vocal and a little more intrigued.
Shorter than usual. A little strange. And without all its additions. Yet, I still hope this newsletter has been enjoyable to read. Maybe encouraged you to enjoy the creative process alongside fear, not in a battle against it, but embracing the absolute terror that comes with leaving yourself and your ideas all over the page, stage, or canvas. I think, at least for me, if I’m not a little petrified, then I’m not creating my most authentic work.
I can’t wait to share with you November’s newsletter - featuring some changes to the format, but back to the usual schedule of the first Sunday of the month.
See you then.
