The fear of getting started

By 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!