Putting the Cart Before the Horse

Rasheed Hooda asks, “Can You Have a Fear of Success and Not Know It?” Who knows that they have a fear of success? It seems so counter-intuitive, doesn’t it? Who, in their right mind, fears success?

More to the point, who has the self-awareness to realize that they do?

Two decades ago, I was challenged to write an essay on why I was afraid to write a novel. What a ridiculous question! I was not afraid, I thought, to write a novel. But the woman who challenged me to write the essay was an agent, and she told me that if I sent her the essay by the end of the month, she would represent me. I finished the essay, eventually, but I never sent it to her.

The insights I gained were as valuable, to me, as representation would have been, at the time. As it turned out, I was afraid to write the novel. Here is what I wrote:

Putting the Cart Before the Horse

I can do this, if I can just… pick… up… this… pen…

As I sit here picking fuzz balls from the carpet, it hits me. I want to write a novel. And I know I can do it with a little discipline and perseverance; as my mother would say, “Just put one foot in front of the other, and keep moving.” Or writing, in this case. So what is it that’s holding me back, driving me to pick the fuzz balls out of the carpet?

Fear.

Fear that I’ll write it, and it will be awful. Embarrassingly awful. So awful that I will have wasted my time, my energy, and my hopes on something that’s not even fit to burn. I’ll have killed hundreds of poor defenseless trees and suffered public humiliation in the process, and for what? To bore my readers to tears?

Fear that I’ll write it, and it will be an overnight bestseller. It’ll be such a raging success that I’ll have to spend half my time on the road, promoting and signing the damned thing. The “business” of writing will take over, leaving me no time or energy to write. My ever-supportive family will hate it, but they’ll put up with it (the better to write their own multimillion-dollar tell-all Mommy Dearest-type expose in years to come). No doubt success will go to my head, and I’ll forget that no matter how smart, skilled, or talented you are, you’re only better at some things than some people.

Fear that I’ll write it, and it will be the kind of novel I want it to be–one that will make my family and friends proud of me. A novel that will earn critical acclaim and entertain millions. A novel that will spark conversations at the water cooler, all beginning with “Hey, have you read that great new book…” And then they’ll figure if I did it once, I can easily do it again. At that point, I’ll be struck with the most horrendous case of writer’s block imaginable, and that’ll be the end of a brilliant start. The one-trick pony, unable to repeat the trick. And then my family and friends won’t be proud of me anymore, they’ll just be disappointed and try to encourage me by telling me what a good writer I am, but we’ll all know better, won’t we?

Isn’t that putting the cart before the horse?

Who said phobias were rational?

Jack Heimbigner believes that “You Need to Stop Writing Alone and Join a Community.”

I remain skeptical. Writers’ groups have rarely worked out well for me, in the past. It is hard for writers to give, and to receive from one another, the honest, constructive, helpful feedback that we often say we’re seeking in a group. For that, we rely on beta readers and those wonderfully ruthless creatures known as professional editors.

And so many of us writers are introverts, by nature, although we can certainly benefit from regular, forced socialization with others who understand that we’d most likely rather be home, writing or reading, than attending any event — even one comprised of like-minded, empathetic souls. I am skeptical, but still optimistic.

I recently joined a group run by bestselling author, Damyanti Biswas, called “We Embrace Rejections.” This group seems tailor-made for writers like me who fear success as much as we fear failure. Writers who have a bad habit of shoving their work in a drawer, waiting for a publisher to call and ask for it — a lucky happenstance, but one that leads to bad habits, like never taking the initiative to submit work for publication. I don’t fear rejection at all; I lack the patience to wait months for it. Flip the script: collect rejections.

Now, if I can just…pick…up…this…pen…