At the start of September, I made a big decision about my writing. I decided that I would look for an agent and publisher when I finish the novel I’m working on. It was a huge decision and it felt so good to make it. So, good in fact, that I announced it on all my social media platforms. I was on a high. I was following my dreams. And, I felt invincible. Little did I know, that one decision would cause my writing to nearly stop.

Inspirational Peter Pan Quotes Writer’s Quote Wednesday – J.m.barrie – Great Quotes Collection

Letting My Inner Critic Win – Procrastination Kills All

Days following my decision I found myself procrastinating worse than ever. Facebook was calling to me and my usual morning five minutes before writing slipped into hours and before I knew it, it was time to work, and then school finished, and I ended up with no words added to my work in progress. I berated myself for the lack of progress and as the days continued and my writing progress worsened, I finally had to stop and see exactly what was going on. I’d gone from being on a high and being so motivated, to struggling to even write 100 words. Something was wrong, very wrong.

I found myself making excuses. Things like:

• I need a bit of a break
• The story’s not working
• I don’t know what’s going to happen next
• It’s boring
• It’s rubbish
• No one is going to want to read this
• Maybe I should start something new
• Etc., etc.,

After days and weeks of this, I was struggling and after some quiet reflection and a little bit of journaling, I discovered the cause. It was actually me. Yes, I was the one standing in my own way. The mind is a great thing and my mind has this particular knack of protecting me from rejection. It’s probably one of my biggest fears and it stems from my father’s death. His suicide left me with a gaping hole and a deep-rooted fear of being rejected in life.

When I made the decision to look for an agent and publisher – which at the time was a great decision to make – I left myself open to rejection and my mind decided this couldn’t happen. All the doubts surfaced. All the mindless chatter about not being good enough, the story being rubbish, the comparison to other writers I admire. It all came to the surface and every time I went to write, my conscious mind started looking for faults. I had too many sentences beginning with I. The prose wasn’t good enough. The dialogue sucked. You name it, I found the fault. I’d type a couple of sentences and stop. I was over analysing, over criticising, and most of all, I was stopping myself from doing what I loved.

By the end of September, I was completely drained. My mood had sunk way lower than I normally allow it too and I was on the verge of stopping altogether. I had myself convinced that I’d much prefer to just be a reader. Then one Sunday morning while the house was quiet – everyone else was still asleep – I picked up my iPad, opened and empty document and just wrote. I wasn’t writing a story, I just wanted to let the words flow. It felt amazing. No judgement, no criticism, I just let it happen, and what flowed was something that even surprised me. A nasty, evil, twisted character who just poured out onto the page. I read it back and I knew in that moment, that it wasn’t my story that was stopping me from finishing it, it was me.

I shared the piece I wrote that morning with my private writers’ group and with their encouragement and support, I made the decision to face my fear of rejection and finish my story. I also told myself that I wouldn’t do anything else until the story was finished. Whether I chose to send it to an agent or not didn’t matter right now. What mattered was getting the words down, and even if they were crap, at least I’d have finished what I started.

Changing Perspective – Using Positive Writing Quotes

I reminded myself of the quote from Ernest Hemingway – “The first draft of everything is shit.” That’s why editing is there. I also printed out the quote, “It is better to write a bad first draft than to write no first draft at all.” I have this stuck up on the wall of my office and every morning I’ve been reading it.

Today, I added 2,269 words to my novel, Winterland, bringing the total word count to 61,431 and it flowed. I didn’t distract myself and my inner critic didn’t rear its ugly head to tell me what I was writing was rubbish.

I’ve faced the fear and done it anyway and I’m determined to keep going until I write the final words. What happens after that, I don’t know, but I do know this, I will face that decision and overcome whatever fears stand in my way when the time comes. The fear of rejection may have tried to stop me, but in the world of writing, this is the one thing you can be guaranteed of. I just have to remember that and go for it anyway.

Do you have any tips or advice on overcoming your fears? I’d love to hear them so please do leave them in the comments.

Until next time,

Keep reading and writing,

Amanda

Amanda J Evans

Amanda J Evans is an award-winning Irish author and writing coach. Amanda writes adult romance that often crosses into paranormal and fantasy. Growing up with heroes like Luke Skywalker and Indiana Jones, her stories centre on good versus evil with a splice of love and magic thrown in too. Her books have all won awards and her novella, Hear Me Cry, won the Book of the Year Award at the Dublin Writers Conference 2018. Amanda is also the author of Surviving Suicide: A Memoir from Those Death Left Behind, published in 2012.

www.amandajevans.com