Less than perfect

I've been a bit hit and miss with the blog lately despite good intentions of posting something every day; sometimes life just gets in the way. You know, the day job, the spouse, going to the gym (yes, I really did) the odd domestic task.

Writing, even.

So I haven't had a chance to post, and I have to accept that I fell a little short of my goals.

Yes, I find that tough. When I was younger, fear of falling short, of failure, was enough to stop me doing things. Now, I try.

Sometimes I fall short. I fail. But there's a difference between being less than perfect and failure. Falling a little short doesn't make you a failure.

I still don't like it but I've learned to deal with it. Things don't always work the way I want them to. Sometimes the writing doesn't flow the way I want it to. Sometimes, I'm just not good enough. Yet.

Sometimes I fall short. But sometimes, it all works.

The dark heart of writing

In my previous entry I wondered what writing meant to others and Erica responded with a wonderful, candid comment, touching on issues like refusing to dumb down for others and standing up to be heard.

She also exposed the dark heart of writing:

Fear.

There’s a lot of fear involved in writing. Fear of not being good enough, not finishing, not being able to capture and do justice to the images dancing in your head. Fear of failure. Sometimes, fear of success.

Yes, you need to shake off that fear if you want to write, but it isn’t always that simple. Fear is elusive and persistent, a master at masquerading as something else. Something else that seems a legitimate reason for not writing. Family. Work. Fatigue. Waiting for the stars to be in alignment.

I think many of us who write struggle beneath some burden of fear; it’s just some days we cope better with it than others.