Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is Our Favorite Motivational/Inspirational Quote.
Mine is so beloved that I have it hanging over my desk. Let me all-cap it for you.
WHAT WOULD YOU WRITE IF YOU WEREN'T AFRAID?
Any time I hesitate while writing, I look at that. And, liberated, I plow forward.
Now, sometimes when I talk about this, people tell me they aren't afraid of anything, certainly not in their writing. Which is fabulous, I guess.
(Really, I don't believe them.)
It's human nature to be afraid. Fear is a protective instinct that kept us from being munched by tigers back in the day and keeps us in the clear with the IRS now. Being afraid of the right things is healthy.
And I'm not talking about gibbering terror. I mean things like being nervous about walking down that skeezy looking dark alley or hesitating over a funky-smelling leftover from the fridge. Those things are warnings to think twice.
The problem is that we become conditioned to hesitate over social gaffes, too. After all, on an instinctual level, being outcast from the herd means the wolves can get us. In the age of social media, we worry about reactions from other people from sneering reviews to mass outrage.
Some of that is important. We need to observe our own biases and review what our privilege leads us to unthinkingly do and say. But that's for a later stage of the work - for review and thoughtful revision.
Before that, we owe it to ourselves and our creative process to disengage from caution and hesitation, to write what comes out. To write what is in us and wants to be spoken.
Write with courage and boldness, always.
