Ten Things I Fear (as a Writer)
Sep. 22nd, 2010 01:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brosedshield This is something I do when I can't sleep and somewhere, down deep where it's hard to look when it's not in poem or story form, I'm freaking out.
Sometimes it's my greatest fears, worst things that could ever happen, or things I would miss after the nuclear Apocalypse, things like that. Last night it was writing.
Each item is arranged from least to greatest.
Ten Things I Fear (as a Writer)
1. Paucity, trivia, the unmocked cliché, grammatical challenges and my personal inability to spell
2. Obscurity
3. Having my novel set before a group of bored high school students for eternity, so that they can learn about my deep-seated issues: the ones that I never knew about when I was alive and the ones I never admitted to
4. Some day waking up with the overwhelming urge to stick my head in an oven, shoot myself in the head, drink myself to death, or walk into a pond with stones in my pockets
5. Being whiny, shallow and self-serving (and self-obsessed)
6. Derision
7. Selling out, not just my gifts (because, let’s face it, I would write whatever you wanted me to, to make a living writing) but to be given the choice to do something great, or do something expected, and to fold under the pressure of assumptions and expectations
8. Dying before I can write the one great truth that fills my heart and keeps trying to come out through my fingers
9. Trying to write my truth, and having my skills completely inadequate to the job.
10. When push comes to shove, having nothing worth saying
Sometimes it's my greatest fears, worst things that could ever happen, or things I would miss after the nuclear Apocalypse, things like that. Last night it was writing.
Each item is arranged from least to greatest.
Ten Things I Fear (as a Writer)
1. Paucity, trivia, the unmocked cliché, grammatical challenges and my personal inability to spell
2. Obscurity
3. Having my novel set before a group of bored high school students for eternity, so that they can learn about my deep-seated issues: the ones that I never knew about when I was alive and the ones I never admitted to
4. Some day waking up with the overwhelming urge to stick my head in an oven, shoot myself in the head, drink myself to death, or walk into a pond with stones in my pockets
5. Being whiny, shallow and self-serving (and self-obsessed)
6. Derision
7. Selling out, not just my gifts (because, let’s face it, I would write whatever you wanted me to, to make a living writing) but to be given the choice to do something great, or do something expected, and to fold under the pressure of assumptions and expectations
8. Dying before I can write the one great truth that fills my heart and keeps trying to come out through my fingers
9. Trying to write my truth, and having my skills completely inadequate to the job.
10. When push comes to shove, having nothing worth saying
