I think in a lot of ways, fear is inherent in writing. Not in a "I'm writing because I'm scared what will happen otherwise" way, and certainly not in a "Dread Cthulhu has taken the reigns of my soul and commands I write these apocalyptic words" way (no judgment of course if Dread Cthulhu is your muse and he does command you to write, inspiration comes from all sorts of places, but if your next novel is going to end the world, I think a warning might be fair). But in the writing process, or at least in my writing process, I have to deal with a lot of fear. Overcoming that fear is one of the harder parts of writing for me as an individual. And what do I do when something terrifies me? I write about it. Fair warning, this is a long one. Enjoy! You sit in front of a laptop you bought specifically for gaming. A black cursor blanks on the snow white surface of an untouched Word document. You type one word, a title. You hate it, but it will do for now. The passion is there. The story idea is there. But the words buzz around your head in a cloud like gnats. You consider a glass of whiskey to calm the nerves, but remember the last thing you wrote that way, shoved in the dark, potentially forever. This is in college, before you really understood moderation, or good whiskey...so you don't. In the background, your roommate, also working on a story is reading off a litany of the newest in a long succession of changes to his magic system. You ask him what his story is about. He blinks and says, "I have to figure this out first". You look back at your one word title, and the words still refuse to cooperate. What if you can't do it? What if you used up all your good words writing something you can't bear to look at? What kind of writer can't write?

That was the first three days of "writing" for my upcoming novel TOUCHED BY SHADOWS, back in 2015. Simpler times, before the world seemed to be on a rollercoaster to hell. Ha. Haha. Ha. Anyway. While I'm not sure "terrified" would have been an appropriate word to use, there was a certain degree of anxiety in my thought process. I mean, I had all the components of a story, idea, characters, plot, and I had all the dressings of a writer, something to write with, lofty goals, and a burning heap of exhaustion (do I need to point out that the last two are sarcasm?). So why weren't the words just appearing where they needed to? I'd done it before, right? Kind of? But that blank page just stared at me, mocking. I honestly considered giving up because "fuck it, if writing isn't easy for me then obviously I'm not meant to be a writer". Do you ever want to go back and slap your younger self? I do. A lot. Eventually I typed something on the page: "Everything that happens, happens for a reason." That was it, my opening line, looking back I'm not sure if it was finally getting that first crappy sentence out or if I actually thought the line was brilliant, but it opened the flood gate and the first draft was finished in a week. All 26000 words of it. My complete story. Or so I thought. I was so proud of it that I immediately put it away and moved on to another project. I had learned something though. That first sentence, for me and probably a whole lot of other writers, was a sticking point. I could sit for days worrying that it wouldn't be perfect. Afraid that it would set a downward trajectory for the rest of my story. If I wanted to write, I had to put something down, good, bad, or ugly, just something. Once that was done I was free to move forward. Now, whenever I have an idea for a story, I spend a good day or two thinking about an opening scene before I even put myself in front of a computer. Only when I have something in mind, do I confront that blank beast, armed to the teeth with words.

Editing scares me. Less now than it used to, but still. It's like a horror movie to me now. You'll be scared, but you'll probably enjoy it once you sit down and get through it. Unless it's bad. It can always be bad. Editing scares me so much that I didn't come back to the story that would become Touched by Shadows for...3 years? I think I finally cracked it back open in 2018. Not of my own choice mind you. I had a conversation that went something like this...

Person who definitely wanted to smash my dreams and totally wasn't trying to help me further my career: "You're really good at finishing stories, but you never go back and edit them"
Me, offended: "Excuse me?"
PWDWTSMDATWTTHMFMC: "I mean, most of writing is editing and rewriting, right?"
Me, trying to run away from a text conversation: ...yes...
PWDWTSMDATWTTHMFMC: "So maybe you should edit that thing you finished?"
Me: ​But what if bad???

After some back and forth like this, I swore to take a break from my current WIP and re-open those 26K words. It was bad. Bad bad. Spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, plot points and character motivations that didn't make sense, the works. I was devastated. But I set to work turning the scalpel to some parts while outright butchering others until almost a year and 20K more words later I had something that was not quite the same thing. The main story was there but characters dropped or were added. One had both a race and an alignment change. I was done, right? I mean I edited it. But after seeing how bad something I thought was so good was, I didn't want anyone else to look at it, because what if I was wrong again? So I went through it again, line by line, snipping, cutting, changing. Now it had to be good. I gave it to the person who'd told me to edit in the first place and asked them to look over it for me. Do you know that feeling when you hand in a paper that you're really proud of, and the teacher hands it back with enough red ink on the first page alone to meet all of Quentin Tarantino's bloody needs? That dread. Yeah, that's about what I got back. To their credit, they did point out things they liked or thought were good to soften the blow, but a brick wrapped in silk still hits like a brick, and my skin was still soft. So I shoved it away and went back to work on something else, afraid now that everything I wrote would be received with such crimson criticism. Eventually the story, now officially titled TOUCHED BY SHADOWS, came up in conversation and I had to confess to the person that their critique had stomped me pretty hard and that I couldn't bring myself to go back to it. So they actually sat down with me and explained what the comments meant and walked through the issues they found and, well, it wasn't all that bad after all. Now that I understood, I wasn't afraid, and I jumped back in for another round of edits, which I then turned over to them again, as well as a few other people, for more feedback. This time they came back mostly positive. A few kinks to be ironed out, but they liked it. So I went back and polished it up one more time and was happy with it. I had overcome that fear of rejection...until that same person asked me when I planned on submitting the novel, since that was my goal after all.

Well now everything was out the window. Sure, my friends liked my little story but a publishing person? A person whose job it was to take bad writing and light it on fire for fun? Surely they would hate it, and my story would be one of the pieces of kindling that lit the way to some better, more awesome author's story! I'd heard of the legions of rejections new authors got and quite frankly wasn't sure I could take it. But in the year of despair, 2020, I picked out four places that were accepting un-agented works of fiction and decided I would submit to them, mostly just to test the water and get the initial wave of rejections out of the way. Another round of edits and formatting and panicking ensued, and finally I tossed it out into the world, expecting that now that I had done it, the fear would drop away like it had before. Hahahahahaha. I was a fool. You know what's worse than knowing how people feel about something you put your heart and soul into? Not knowing. Not knowing is worse. Waaaaaaaaay worse. If all four had sent back immediately with an email that just said, "Bitch, you thought", I would have been less stressed. Upset, for sure, but the stress was brutal. But I did it, and despite a few new grey hairs in my beard despite by age I survived long enough to get an email saying that one of the companies was interested in TOUCHED BY SHADOWS. 

Now, yes, this post is distinctly my experience. Maybe some authors leap into their chair and feel no fear from that blank page. Maybe editing is your favorite part. Or perhaps you relish in the anxiety of waiting to hear back from people you submit your work to, you monster. Everyone's journey will be different. But if you are a writer who wants to be traditionally published (self-publishing has similar anxieties, but also different ones as well) I think we can agree that these three sections of the journey are the same: Starting, Editing, and Submitting. And there is an inherent terror to each of the steps. The fear of the first step, the fear that you aren't really a writer (imposter syndrome), the fear of rejection, the fear of being bad, the fear that at the end of the day everyone else will always be better than your best. But each of those sections requires you to overcome that fear in order to move on to the next. You'll never be able to edit a story you haven't written. And you can't (read: shouldn't) submit a story you haven't edited. And you can't publish a story you haven't submitted. Fear is inherent in writing, not because fear drives us to write, but because in order to write, you have to overcome fear. Every single time you sit down to write, it's not you versus the story or you versus your characters, its you versus fear. And sure, I'm a newbie author, I'm sure it gets a little easier as you write more and grow as a writer and person. I already find starting stories and editing easier, though, given my disposition, I'm sure every time I submit anything it will turn my beard slightly more salt and pepper. But a battle is a battle, no matter how high your level, and I'd be willing to bet that some of your favorite authors face the same struggle as you. So next time you sit down to write, whether your weapon is a pen or a keyboard, or something altogether different, remember that fear is the enemy, and remember what waits for you once you kick its ass.​
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"This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it's done. It's that easy, and that hard." - Neil Gaiman

​So, what parts of the creative process give you the most fright? Vaughn A. Jackson

Vaughn is a neophyte writer of speculative fiction. His debut novel TOUCHED BY SHADOWS will be released via JournalStone publishing on September 24, 2021.