Skip to main content

Getting Started

 


Writing can change the world, but it is not easy. The hardest part of writing (for me) is getting started. So many times, I have tried to get motivated to write and the mojo just isn’t flowing. Or, I will have an idea, but be uncertain what to do with it. Do I proceed down path A, or path B, or path C? Or is there another even better path that I haven’t considered yet? There is a certain amount of fear of wasting my time, writing 10,000 words that wind up not going anywhere. Writer’s block is not always about difficulty in coming up with ideas. Sometimes it is about what to do with those ideas.

The thing is, once I get started, I usually can keep the fingers flying. It is just getting over that initial hurdle that’s the problem. I know this about myself. You would think that would make it easy to push through the uncertainty blockage, and just launch into my next project. But no. Knowing about it does not make it easier.

It’s not just me. Many writers have this problem or some variant of it. And it is not just writers. Fear of the unknown, fear of failure, stops people from trying anything new. Growth or advancement requires change, change in yourself, change in your world view, change in your comfortable life. We all want growth, either physical, spiritual, professional, or intellectual growth. We all instinctively know that we can’t attain that without change. But change is hard. Change is risky. Change is the unknown. It might be as uncomfortable as walking down the street naked while singing at the top of your lungs. Getting out of your comfort zone is what it takes to get anywhere in life. But you have to accept it. You can’t change the world without changing your world.

Aversion to change is part of the human makeup. Most of us don’t like change. We like to be comfortable. Comfort: that is the root of the problem. Wanting to stay comfortable in our own routine is what keeps us from advancing, keeps us stuck. Some people are less averse to change than others and those people are doers. Doers don’t necessarily like change, but they have found a way to push through their resistance.

I have basically two creative outlets in my life: Writing and theater. Stepping out onto a stage for the first time in front of hundreds of people is daunting. Your desire to achieve something has to overcome your fear of all the ways it could go wrong. And there are so many ways it can go wrong. If you dwell on them, you would never go on stage.

Writing is more private than stepping on stage. If you write into a dead end, no one has to know. But what you have written is still your baby. If it is bad, you have to let it go, and that can be demoralizing. It can make you question yourself. “Maybe I am no good at this writing thing.” It is a confidence killer. Confidence is what makes you get on stage. It is what makes you push through a writing blockage. Believing that you really are good at this, you can do this, makes the barriers fall.

Go out and change the world. You can do it.


(My science fiction novel Star Liner, is now available in paperback or as an e-book through Amazon and other online sources).

Star Liner


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Retired

  I retired this week. So, big lifestyle changes for me? Not so much. I retired on Thursday. My office had an amazing party for me on Wednesday, lots of food, lots of cards, lots of personal connections. Gifts too, I wish I had told them, no gifts. I really don’t need anything. But all this does make one feel appreciated. It also makes me feel appreciated that they want me to come back on a contractual basis every now and then to impart my institutional knowledge. It is always the case when someone retires, knowledge is lost to the organization. Things have to be relearned by the next generation. This is somewhat offset by the fact that the world is changing through advancing technology etc. So, the knowledge that the retiring person has might eventually become obsolete anyway. Better to go out while you are still on top. We have all seen professional athletes who stayed on well beyond their prime. It would have been better to go out while still on top. But it is a hard thing to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu

My first experience with cyberpunk as a genre of science fiction was Neuromancer by William Gibson. Neuromancer was one of the early works that defined the cyberpunk genre. It was insanely influential. It won the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Philip K. Dick Award. But for me, it just did not resonate. I had a hard time visualizing the concepts. It left a bad taste in my mouth for cyberpunk. I mostly avoided the genre. Then a couple of years ago I read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson which is cyberpunk (although some people say it is a parody of cyberpunk). Whatever, I liked it. I recently picked up All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu and it immediately became apparent to me that this was cyberpunk. Julia Z is the main character, and I think this is going to be the start of a series following her. She is a hacker (hence cyberpunk). She has got herself in trouble and so she lives on the margins, barely making it. Then a lawyer asks her for her help. His wife has been kidnapped. The ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Darkness

  There was a moment when I discovered that l liked dark music. I do like dark music. I like minor keys and a haunting theme. I like other kinds of music too, but that darkness speaks to me in a special way. What does that say about me? Am I messed up? I don’t think so. Maybe I am just built that way that haunting tunes or lyrics imparts some inner truth to me. It resonates. I know precisely when I discovered this about myself. It was Summer of 1971. I was 12 years old. I was on a plane with my family heading to Illinois. Airplanes back then did not have much in the way of entertainment, but what they did have were headphones and music channels you could listen to. I was listening to a channel of popular current hits, and a song came on called “That’s the Way I Always Heard it Should Be” by Carly Simon. I had never heard of Carly Simon. This was before “Anticipation” and “You’re so Vain.” She was not yet famous. But this song came on and, I don’t know, it did something to me. It...
Post a Comment
Read more