Today, of course, is brought to you by the letter F in the A to Z Challenge and I wondered if Facebook should be the topic but my fear of failure won out because, unlike Facebook, it’s always been a constant and is for a lot of authors/ writers.
And it’s Friday!! So that’s a wonderful F to celebrate today but back to business.
Just as I have always been determined to make it as a writer, fear has never left its side. Hearing the doubts of so many, telling me and other authors that it’s just not possible to make a living through writing books is discouraging at times. Other times I let this fear of failure drive my success and push me to find new ways to earn money through my passion.
In life it’s easy to be overcome by the unknown and to just give up on your dreams no matter what they are. It’s so much easier to do what you know, what has worked in the past and has been proven to pay bills than to branch out and try to change things. If we all let fear restrict us we would never leave our houses or meet knew people. Though we likely don’t remember learning to walk it seems natural that it would have terrified us, falling down more than the number of steps we could take at once and possibly hurting ourselves in the process but we didn’t give up. The reward far outweighed the risk as we got back up and tried again, ignoring the bumps and bruises and possible repeat pain felt.
This is the same truth as living life and trying new things. Our daily lives are so boring if we continue to do the same everyday, knowing and trusting in safety just so we know how it ends. As an author, and a reader, I love the suspense of the story so why write or lead a boring one?
When Natalie, the main character in my first novel Arm Farm, came home to find her parents dead she didn’t just succumb to the awful grief she must have felt, she resolved to solve the mystery behind their untimely demise. And Blood Day, the short story I wrote out of fear of not giving myself a chance, actually won first place in the contest! A story very unlike anything I’ve written which made it terrifying to have people read but once they did they demanded more, giving me confidence to look even further within myself to touch on subjects I never thought I could.
If we do something every day that scares us we’ll get bumps, sure, but we’ll also better understand who we are and what we love and the lucky ones who can do this regularly will thrive and be the happiest.
Please let me know what you did today that scared you. Face your fears and thrive!
Thanks for reading,
Sarah Butland
The one thing I did that scared me was to start my own online magazine. I’ve wanted to start my own publication for a while and after many false starts and rejections from jobs that I wanted, I’m absolutely tired of waiting to get my dreams from someone else. I want to go out there and capture my dream and say that I can do it. TI really enjoyed this blog post. Keep up the great work !