I can relate. I decided on a course to defeat parts of it so I could shelf those parts but I’m not there yet: I started on a few pronged approach:
a) What does it take to be a writer? First you have to write. Well, I do that — a LOT. So, I started collecting everything in one place.
In 2013, I made a website just to LITERALLY “Collect My Thoughts”. Thought collector. It’s public so that it holds me to honesty but I made it ugly so nobody WANT to hang around it.
http://icopiedyou.com is that and I put everything, including this comment, into it. I can google my brain. Handy. Goes back in time as far as I’ve found writings of mine for.
b) Book. Book book book. So what’s involved with that? Well, you need a publisher. What’s the easiest publisher? Amazon self-publishing looked easy.
So, my goal was to publish a book. ANYTHING. Didn’t matter. I did it several times. https://www.amazon.com/s?i=digital-text&rh=p_27%3AKenneth+Udut&s=relevancerank&text=Kenneth+Udut&ref=dp_byline_sr_ebooks_1
So now I know the physical PROCESS.
c) Most importantly: I did not attach myself EMOTIONALLY to outcome.
I went through ALL the steps EXCEPT ONE:
__MARKETING__
So now I know… if I *do* write THAT BOOK that I will emotionally invest my SELF into, I can at least go through the PROCESS easily.
All that would be left is selling – what?
The book?
No.
Myself.
I’d be selling ME with all of the potential heartache and drama that goes with any relationship with emotional investment.
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I know you can do it.. I know you can do it because I know I can do it. Fear of success may be what holds you back more than fear of failure. I pursued a “path to failure” with “being an Author” ON PURPOSE so I could confirm that for myself about myself.
I wrote things QUICKLY that wouldn’t sell – JUST LIKE MOST AUTHORS.
So I got it over with.
What’s left is fear of success.
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Maybe you can delegate.
I know if I ever decided to “Just Do It”, I’d have to hire an editor.
I can’t edit my own writings. They come out.. and I move forward.
I can’t go back. So, I know I’d need that.
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Oh fiction. Yeah, that takes a kind of commitment that I coudn’t imagine. “Protestant-work-ethic” would kick in too much to stay focused.
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is an author of science fiction. I don’t know if he self-publishes or not but I see his works on Amazon. Uses a pen name and is tirelessly promoting and seems to have decent sales.
I didn’t know until about six months chatting with him here and there that G.W. Morgan and Don Ciers were one and the same. Even now, I’m not entirely sure as he carries them as separate individuals most of the time.
I’m not saying that self-publishing is ‘the’ way to go, but it’s ‘a way’ to consider that might get you past this particular concern.
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[I’ve never read his work but he represents what I think of as a good model of a successful author of fiction]
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