Fear Facing Prep

Yesterday, I mentioned the idea of doing a Face Up To Fear Day this Thursday. The basic idea was to do a few different things that I've been putting off for one reason or another that could summarily be called Fear. I've been afraid to put myself and my work on the line, and I've decided to put an end to that.

So, Thursday is going to be my inaugural Face Up To Fear Day. It might be a weekly thing.

Because it's such a personal thing, I'm not going to be listing everything I'll be doing on Thursday as part of this. However, one thing I have no trouble mentioning is that I'll be releasing a series of videos. I've been writing poems every day this month, as I'm sure you know, and a few of these have been about some of my favourite YouTubers.

The idea behind that is that I've been avoiding doing recordings of poems for a while. This is possibly because they've been so personal in a lot of cases, and while I don't plan on keeping those poems a secret forever and ever, I don't think I have the guts to put them out in the world myself just yet.

So, that's my compromise, and it's an example I can work with.

I drew up a list of everything I need to do to actually face up to that fear of putting some work out there, focusing on something that isn't so personal it'll terrify me if people hear me reading it. This list included:

- Write at least one more poem.
- Type up the poems.
- Memorise the poems - or enough of them at a time - for recording.
- Edit the videos.
- Release, and create a playlist.

Since I've been announcing the poems on Twitter as I've been writing them, I can reveal that the YouTubers who have poems written about them are, in order of writing:

- Carrie Hope Fletcher
- The World of Orange (WOTO)
- Charlie McDonnell
- Alex Day
- John and Hank Green (the vlogbrothers)

I consider this Volume 1 of The YouTuber Poems.

I'm not presuming them to be brilliant poems, though I'm happy with what I managed to do with a few of them, and I very much doubt any of the seven people above (two in WOTO) will ever see the videos. However, if they do, and/or if people enjoy them, I'll take that as a positive sign and work on writing poems about some of my other favourites.

I have a few other items on the list for Thursday, which will require putting myself out of my comfort zone. And that's the point. I've been hiding behind this safety net, and I want to get out of it, to get into the world and to start experiencing something new and exciting. I can't do that if I hide behind fear all the time.

On Thursday night, I'll go over how everything went with the day (and I'll embed the videos here). This'll be a fun day, I think, if not a little bit terrifying in parts.

Stepping Up a Notch

Back when I made plans for the summer to write all the time, things were simple: I had a job, I had a list of things I wanted to write. Since  then, it's become more complicated. My job is less likely to provide additional income. That's the major upset to the plans. In other areas of life, things have actually improved.

My initial intenton back in March was to just write all the time. Then, the Heart in Mouth competition happened, and I found a greater interest in poetry than I've ever had before. A consequence of this is that in my plans for what I hope to achieve by September's end, I'm looking to submit a few dozen poems in the next four months, along with fiction of various lengths. I plan on entering competitions and submitting to journals and hoping, hoping, that something will pay off. That sort of desire to get my poetry out there didn't really exist two months ago.

A further consequence of this is that I need to be writing a lot more poetry. I have ideas in mind to keep the poetry going, some large projects that need attending to. However, I'm also planning on following an example set by Dave Lordan: write a poem every day. I'm testing that this month, and if it goes well I'll do it again in July. That's 61 poems. I cannot guarantee they'll be any good, mind you; that seems to happen to me without my intending it, though always when I attempt to write a certain type of poem. When I reach in to myself, when I attempt to write about something close to me, that's when I find the heart of my poetry, the emotions needed to create something worth reading, worth experiencing, and the words almost fall into place themselves.

Other factors that have played a part in this are the people I meet. Specifically, in one instance, the friends I've been writing with for the past couple of years in college (more so in the last year) have been driving me towards trying to do better. They inspire a certain confidence in me, and when we get together to read poetry or short stories, I feel like I learn something from every one of them.

They've made me want to pursue old dreams. They'll understand in reading this what I might mean, given the sorts of things we talk about. Grandiose projects in development are making me want to spend a lot more time at my craft, and to reach out to other writers.

Reading particular books has inspired me towards trying to achieve more. One such example, mentioned before, is the 4 Hour Work Week. It's not that I only want to write for four hours of the week, but that I want to have a lifestyle that befits my aspirations. I don't think I could be happy just accepting life as is, falling into place in a job (and worse: one I don't enjoy.)

I want to step it all up a notch, and I know that I have to. That, I think, is why I haven't been working as much as I ought to all the time. I think part of me is afraid of failing if I actually apply myself fully, as if writers aren't meant to be prepared for rejection. You know what, to hell with rejection! It's not really much to be afraid of, in the end. It's an absense of someone seeing your work or your life in the same way you do, or in a way that fits their needs. That is not something I can change, and it's not something I should dwell over.

What I'm saying is, I'm going to try harder to actually stick to my plans. I don't care that I'll be insanely busy and half-mad by the end of it with all the wild characters in my stories getting out. I love it. I love writing, and I want to stop being so afraid to do more of it. I've gone through this sort of stuff too much in the past to just let it happen again, because I know that I only ever feel flustered and deflated and ultimately angry at myself for not putting in even a little bit of work when I should have done.

I'm stepping it up a notch. I'm going to make sure that the past eight years of my life haven't all been to get scared when things start getting serious.

Preparations

Every year, I seem to blog about made plans for the summer. This is usually a list of books I want to write and books I want to read and all the adventures I plan on going on and all that sort of stuff. The problem with that is that it all seems to only be intentions. I never actually go through with most of it.

Last summer, I planned to do one thing: write and publish Balor Reborn in a week. I did that, I was happy. This year, I have more plans. I've had them for a while. It's possible they will be derailed by unexpected but not unwelcome changes in my life, but for now I have plans for the future.

With that in mind, I have been preparing.

A large part of this has been gathering books and resources, though there's also just been some planning of novellas. Aside from that, I've been looking at tax info and business info and marketing techniques and how to do particular things online and in "real life", and while a lot of it has been overwhelming, it's made it all seem very real in a good way.

That was the thing that made Balor Reborn a success in its publication: it's planning and preparation was real. I made it so I couldn't back out by sending a press release out, not just to local press but to major newspapers and magazines and television stations. People even responded. How bad would it have looked if, after those responses, I'd pulled out?

You don't have to answer that question.

Doing something concrete makes the plans and preparations easier to stick to, in my mind. Not just writing them on paper, but giving myself a reason for doing them and making it so I can't pull out. Sure it will be scary to make big announcements to the world about projects I've been working on (or haven't completed), but life has taught me time and again that the things most worth doing are often the things that scare me the most.

Last night proved that, Balor Reborn proved that. I think I can deal with being scared again for the sake of the rest of my life and all the madness that's bound to happen. The worst that can happen is that I fail, and damn that's not the worst thing that can ever happen.

And I'm not just saying that because of the Dreaded Exams.

What I'm taking from all of this is that in making preparations for something, it helps to actually make preparations. Like, sorting out tax information to make it so I really have to earn back the money it costs to file the paperwork. Or buying an absurd amount of books on a topic that has no real practical application without a further degree. Or getting other people involved, because other people like their time and you don't want to annoy them.

I have a lot going on after college. That's kind of scary, like leaving college is kind of scary, and I know that that's only because I haven't been anything but a student for eighteen years. But scary is good. Scary means it might be worth it. But scary can be hard to deal with, so I make preparations, real-world semi-adult preparations and scary becomes manageable.

Hopefully I'll have a better idea of what I can announce soon. All these preparations are leading to something that could take twice as long as I'd like to follow through with if things change, and I don't want life to suddenly become a terrifying prospect of not meeting deadlines, ever. So, for the sake of my sanity, I'm keeping quiet. Just know that I'm working on something (albeit more slowly than I'd like, thanks to college), and it will happen in the future (most likely this year, hopefully by September). It's scary, but scary-good, like reading poetry at a book launch, not scary-bad, like seeing a spider and wishing to burn it to death with a flamethrower.

Let's pretend I never said that.

Fear and Other Things

So I have a theory which I am presupposing is accurate - people are afraid of following their dreams. Not everyone, but a lot of people, myself included. I was thinking about it on the way home from college, a book in a folder in my hand and the sun making me regret wearing my big green coat that really just killed me towards the end of the day. I wrote the book over two years ago. I have done no work on the book in about eight months. In that time I wrote three somewhat good novellas - they have potential, but they're nowhere near what I'd like them to be - and I started at least three other books that never got further than a few thousand words. But I haven't done what's important towards getting published, and that's finishing this one really important book.

The fear, I suppose, is that if I got published and if I'm to believe a friend that it'll make me "millions", my whole life would change. I would lose that drive to finish my college course, and maybe I'd become so involved in my own newly developing world that I'd give up all the people I care about. It's not uncommon for me to drift from social group to social group, to sometimes become entirely self-involved (without rubbing my existence in anyone's face, mind you, just not paying entirely enough attention to everyone else). It's my nature to become distracted by new and shiny things, and I worry (maybe that's the wrong word) that if I ever got anywhere I wanted to I'd leave behind the foundations of that life and lose the people I cared about because I stopped paying attention for just a bit too long.

I think that fear stems from my misunderstanding of people, jumbled up with the aforementioned self-involvement. It's as if, sometimes, if I annoy someone or if I don't talk to them, that I'll just slip too far away from them to matter anymore, as if my parting in one way or another matters so much that I won't get back. So, if I got published, if I became successful, then I'd be leaving behind the people I care about; not in spite, not in anger or because of an argument, but because I'd have to focus so much on doing something that's important to me, and this new and shiny adventure I'm on would bypass any need to keep in touch with people.

And I have the same fear that once people get over their own inhibitions or the obstacles set up by other people on their lives that maybe I'd be all forgotten about, or worse that I am one of the obstacles in their way and I'd have to give up one of my friends for them to be happy. I assume the absolute worst, sometimes, and I cannot help that, particularly if I get caught in some sort of downward spiral, and sometimes that feeling of being an obstacle just doesn't go away.

This fear I have, this multitude of fears that I have, is something I am sure that lots of people go through. It's why we procrastinate, is it not? It's why people don't study even when they want to do well, because it's like if they apply themselves then everything will change. Or worse: they don't think they're good enough, regardless of whether or not they study. I was like that. I know I could have done better in my Leaving Certificate, but I didn't do the work. That's my own fault, but it was fear of under-succeeding that got to me, and the fear that everything would change after the exams.

But there is the truth - things have to change. In the exam situation, whether you pass or fail subjects, things will change anyway. Everything changes, though not immediately, and what many people, myself included, sometimes fail to realise is that it's up to us to decide how our lives should change. While I don't encourage cutting people loose from your life, I do suggest that people do something selfish, do something for themselves, something that will make them, and them alone, happy. Whether it's going for that job they don't think they deserve, finishing the book and submitting it to a publisher or anything else that won't directly hurt someone (because obviously if you get the job or if you get published, it can significantly reduce the chances that someone else will get the same benefits... but remember: this is about you!), people ought to chase their dreams, big or small.

It's impossible to be completely released from our inhibitions, but we can sure as heck make an effort to overcome the challenges that hold us back. At the risk of being preachy (oh, too late),I'm going to finish by saying that people need to take control of their own lives. We don't have to do everything our parents want from us - such as becoming a teacher after doing this course I'm in  rather than pursuing some other career - and we don't have to be held back by their decisions about something that we disagree with entirely, that affect us negatively. If you want to go to college against their wishes, pay for it yourself. Find your passion and live it, be happy, and the rest will work out around it.

And when you get scared, what then?

I talk about it. Not always quite so publicly as this, but to a close friend. I imagined most of this being said to a friend without him being able to respond because it let me get things straight in my head, but really this isn't something I think I could have said to him - whether he was sober or drunk and calling at three in the morning - because I wouldn't have been able to put the words right out loud for fear of sounding like I was trying to take control of his life of have him make my decisions for me. But that's just me - I'm a complicated individual. But talking about fear, talking about the things that hold us back, is the first step towards overcoming those obstacles so we can get on with the race.

That was preachy, wasn't it? Sure, what about it? Live your life, live your dreams, be yourself and get over your fears. And do as I say, not as I do, because odds are I won't follow my own advice, whether it's good or bad.