Facing fear

Our fears can do one of two things: prevent us from doing what we want to do or inspire us to overcome those fears by doing what frightens us. Those people we are most likely to have heard about are those who chose the second option. Those who take the first option are the ones sitting alone somewhere. They never asked out the girl who charmed them. They never applied for the job they wanted. They never wrote the book they only thought about writing.

Ralph Keyes

Writing takes courage, as Ralph Keyes tells us repeatedly in The Courage to Write. That's what the book is about, after all. All writers are afraid, he says. They are afraid of rejection. They are afraid of being laughed at. They are afraid of getting it wrong. They are afraid of hurting those they write about. They are afraid of being unable to equal prior successes. Fear for a typical writer never stops

Keyes goes so far as to call fear a necessity for writers. Fear is, he says, "an invaluable part of the writing process." Fear inspires us. It heightens our awareness and sensitivity. It makes us more careful, more diligent. Fear makes success and survival all the more sweet.

Yet there is another invaluable part of the writing process. And that is overcoming that fear. Writers must finally be willing to write and put their work out there for others to read and judge, come what may.