The Fear of Getting Started

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Chandran (in response to a “writing meditation” during the Monday session).

 

This exercise comes as an interesting coincidence, if there is such a thing as a coincidence at all. I have been thinking and talking for quite a while about writing - writing for a living. It came as an insight at the Agonda workshop last year over a year ago. Since then, Meher has been putting pen and paper into my hands and urging me to get started. We even discussed this in a session with Charmayne a couple of days back. So writing is itself a matter of great and immediate personal concern to me. I know I can do it, yet there is a great fear of getting started.

For years, I have been writing for myself, but what I have written has sat safely (or so I thought) on the hard disk of my computer, shown only to a few close friends, if anyone. And then, a few months ago, a problem occurred with the machine, and I lost it all. It was one of those interesting lessons that Life, the Universe or whatever is constantly teaching us. In this case it seemed to say ‘Use it or lose it’, though in a sense you do not lose it. Whatever is of real value is still in my head.

Which brings me to my reluctance to ‘go public’. If I self-publish on the web, I cannot offer it to a publisher and if I go to a publisher first, I may get rejected. So it has felt safer to sit in a comfort zone, telling myself I can, but not acting for fear of failure. Will I ever be able to make a living this way, I wonder. I broke out of a regular 9 to 5 job nearly six years ago, but have not established a suitable altenative for myself.

I see clearly this path to express my creativity. I cannot paint, I cannot play a musical instrument, but I certainly can write. And after the sort of risks I have taken and the changes I’ve made in my life in the recent past, what better time than this.

Perhaps it is happening, maybe this is a beginning ….and Uma, you’ve got some material for your blog!

Comments

[Solomon Marni]

Aytaroun's Eyes.

By Solomon Marni
to the Fat One.

Your eyes won't let my thoughts go back to sleep.
Your words draw me across 2000 miles.
I don't know you at all, and yet I know
You better than my friends of many years.
The days I spent with you are like a tape
I play, rewind, play, rewind, and play.
Whenever I remember something new,
I feel as though you touched me on the cheek.

I miss you as the grass awaits the wind,
Or as the morning sky awaits the sun.
Although I look for you in every doorway,
I find only the darkness in my heart.

[ncvrw viqg]

qkzemlo kfdesi rscjyh qxhbnsazi fgazxw fkvsqydcw rymuknvi

[lutvgf eigtnv]

cygwueqv xphoncet oatkxi irsmqwb gikfo vnidohub qklwnb http://www.otzn.umnroy.com

[Radha Kunke]

i really liked this one ... what is the background
? is it for a person or a place ? aytaroun as i know is a place ...

[Zoe Irvine]

Chandran - Your words are the inspiration I have been looking for this evening, amid a wealth of distractions and activities that keep me from getting started on anything that really matters to me. Thank you, I hope you can motivate yourself equally as succesfully :)

Solomon - This poetry felt so personal, as if I had written it myself without knowing. It can mean so many things and I thank you for sharing it here, it has brought a little more clarity into my life.