Fear of success

The hard part is taking the risk of failing. That's why so many of us never take the final step and try.

I wish I had the magic answer. Desperation can be one, either economic, or spiritual. Suppose a doctor told you that you had six months to live? Would you risk it then?

There's another part to this, too, and that is when people capable of brilliant performance lame themselves so even though they seemingly take the risk, they really haven't put forth their best effort. It's a method of protecting themselves from the ultimate failure: having given one's best, tried one's hardest, and still failed. Most of us just can't bear to suffer that kind of defeat. Even if it's not our fault. And yet we constantly imagine it.

It's relatively easy to put a book together these days. Selling more than a few copies requires a different set of skills. Sometimes just putting the thing out is more important than selling it. Sometimes, the cost is too high unless the reward will be great. Only you can know how to balance these elements.

Good luck.

I'm one of those self-lamers. I never put any real effort into anything until after I turned 40. I sometimes like to call myself a "professional slacker". It wasn't until I realized I wouldn't be getting any younger that I started writing for publication.

Fear of failure may be a problem for me, but that's the kind of fear that was meant to be overcome. Fear of success, on the other hand, can be a killer. I should know. After all, success will radically change my life. Does that kind of transformation threaten in your future? It takes you out of your comfort zone, and that's scary. But still I fight on. I'm sending out my '07 novel to publishers by the end of August, and I'm determined to fight my old enemy procrastination to get the first episode of my manga finished and ready to post online in September.

NaNo '06: Black Science
NaNo '07: Bad Company
NaNo '08: Points of Authority
Script Frenzy '08: Spanner
Project Blog: Spanner's World

Yes, it's scary to take a leap to something radically different. Lots of people fear they will not know themselves. Which is strange because so many people do invent and then reinvent themselves. I remember this ultra-fashionable young woman whose mother had none of the same patina. Obviously, the daughter was the one who had decided that manicures and pedicures and serious hair salon time were important to her public persona.

Incorporating writing into your life and working at submitting manuscripts is a logical way to make selling them not such a leap. Even so, people who have sudden big success thrust on them often do choke. They no longer recognize their lives and they lose traction. Or, perhaps worse, they sell a book and nothing changes. Maybe it makes some money, maybe it doesn't. Maybe it sinks without a trace regardless of money. That's tough to contemplate. No wonder a lot of people don't even try.

I think it has something to do with the act of creating something is fullfilling and makes me happy. But I don't know how well that feeling will last if it's exposed to the thoughts and feelins of others.

Like when you are little and you do a nice picture and are proud of it. Everybody is complimentary. Then years later you look at it and realise that while it was good for a kid it isn't exactly art.

The commitment to say it done and you are letting it go.

Plus there is too that feeling like once it's set free on the world I'm no longer creating alone and I have to force myself to admit that I'm doing this as work, or something like it. I have to consider the audiance, their wants and desire, there's more responsabilty. Before it was art for arts sake, now it's a product.

I've never been in that kind of place before. Before now it's always just been creative and dreaming, now I'm moving it into a whole new territory.

and I know going in that there are likel now ways to please everybody, I will have unhappy customers and probably some critics of some of my material in future.

I guess it has to do with making myself vulnerable.

I agree about the vulnerability.

None of us wants criticism. We want rave reviews. But the world includes people who will not like us or appreciate our work. When we put our real selves out there and get criticized, it's tough. On the other hand, isn't it better to be criticized for what you really are than for some socially acceptable facade?

I guess every writer has to decide whether to write the story they want to write, or something they think other people might like. Ideally, the first can be the second.

yup I know that critscim can be a helpful tool. I just hate to see people lining up with shot guns when I let the puppies out for a walk. Many an idea gets shot down before it reaches it's full potential, and still other are just trigger happy enough to shoot down even the best idea.

But thats only half of it. The other half is the responsability to carry the good ones further. Until Now the mazes are done when they are done, but should I publish them, then I have to back them financially, market and support the sales and then work out subsequent releases (not to mention, store, copyright, isbn, ect). Fans might want more, some might want new styles. I have to know when to walk away before they become old an useless and I needlessly keep pumping in resources better alocated to other projects.

It sounds silly to fear that too. after all it's part of creating something good. But the fear is more about can I do it right, can I carry it all the way. After all parenting is over after the birth, and you don't just hand it off because you don't know if you can handle the responsability. You definately should get into it if you are not willing to work.

Maybe its the switching of modes. The passion and romance of creation to the work and responsabilty to support and maintain. It's a sudden change and can be a bit bewildering.

time to suck it up, and go.

I think I've been too worried about what changes might come, rather then doing what I need to.

Which is to view the challenges and responsability of carrying these projects outside of my and see them grow in the world, as a creative challenge too. It's a challenge to my creativity to make this part as much an art and craft as the design and creation of the objects themselves was.

I think sometime too we are afraid to finish and let projects go, perhaps because we don't have anything else lined up, or because we're comfortable with being someone who is working on a novel, rather than someone who is a published novelist. I know I like the free-wheeling brainstorming part much better than the finishing part.

I've tried a couple of techniques which have helped me push through fear before:

- what is the worst that could happen if you do this? what is the best? what about if you didn't do this?

- if you complete that e-book, how will you feel in an hour, a week, a month, a year, 10 years? Will you regret doing it or not doing it more?

- write out your fears, even the silly stuff like, "my friends won't like me anymore" or "I'll go mad", writing them down sometimes helps move past them.

- split it out into easy steps. You sound like you know exactly what you have to do but it does still sound like quite a lot of work. Maybe set yourself a daily goal of "Scan 10 mazes" or something else ridiculously achievable. After a few days of small successes you'll be ready to "Scan 20 mazes" or "Write intro for e-book".

Let us know how you get on!

http://carolineroberts.blogspot.com/

thank you for the thought ful reply, Caroline.

I think you are closer to hitting it on the head then most.

It's not so much that I don't have anything else to move onto. Because I have a million things to do. I spent decades living partly in a mind that is crazy creative and coming up with millions of ideas all the time. Some body just needs to say something simple and boom I'm off. when I was younger I started my version of the davinci workbooks to keep these things from fading and disappearing. now I have hundreds of ideas, maybe thousands. I used to think that I would never get even a fraction of them done before I died. Now I'm not sure, I might just catch up what with the recent drive, combining projects, meditations to calm the mind and a likely shortened life span due to illness (it means less time to come up with more ideas).

I think the real issue is that when I'm working on a book of hand drawn mazes, I can say I am somebody who is working on a book of hand drawn mazes. I've grown to identify with that aspect of myself. Now I have to let it go and change how I identify myself. I've gone through some painful changes in the last decade, too many. Enough so that I have to fight the urge from time to time, to reach out grab the things around me and yell "Stop! just some stability for a little while, please!" So the idea of willingly inflicting that on myself... it's hard.

That and once I do finish and move to the next thing people ask how the last project went. and here is the thing, either it flopped and I have to admit my failure... or it succeeded and I have to admit that I got it off the ground and then moved on to something else. To my family that would be just as bad. To fail at impractiacle things more then a few times is seen as a waste of time (better to find something that sorta works and tie yourself down to it) , and to be seen a succeeding well enough and walking away is just stupid.

It's sort of programing I've lived with. I fear change and I fear being trapped. Sort of a catch 22. I sort of know the answer though. As I'd rather create and do these things then waste away doing nothing. So I have to conquer the fear of change. If I succeed at something there is no crime in changing to something else. I can always revisit things for a bit from time to time.

It's just hard. It's hard to reprogram yourself.