#6 - On Writing and Fear: Some Imperfect Notes
This is going to be an imperfect essay, because that's the only way I will get it written and share it with you. If I try to dwell too long on it, worry that it's not my best, then my fear will take control of me. It will plague me not only when I am writing this draft, but also when I'm not writing it--when I'm thinking about writing it, about the essays I've written so far and the essays I'm yet to write, and when I'm doing other things--eating, reading, walking. The fear will follow me around all day like a shadow, something I can't remove from myself.
If I let it have what it wants--if I don't write--Kadambari will stay incomplete. And so here I am, writing slowly but without stopping, with only one goal in mind: put my fear into words and publish by the time the clock strikes 7:30 pm here in India. I have 21 minutes left.
And I need to articulate what the fear is doing to me because fear never truly dissipates. I was afraid when I was younger; I'm afraid now, when I have so many years of practice and so many publications behind me. I need to describe this fear so that it's easier to identify--once you name the fear, once you describe what it is that you're really afraid of, it becomes less scary because most of my fears are nothing but irrational thoughts, born from assumptions and insecurities.
So what am I afraid of? Since publishing my last essay--the most vulnerable thing I have ever shared on the internet--I've been afraid that I've lost my audience because I was so honest about money. I was afraid that I'd damaged the goodwill I'd collected through the first four essays, and that no one would want to support Kadambari after reading my previous piece.
And why wouldn't they do it? I don't have an answer to that. And that is where the irrationality of my fear lies. I have no idea about the effect my previous essay has had on readers. I don't know how many people have read it; no one has reached out to tell me what they thought about it. Yet I'm assuming that I've lost all readers and supporters.
Putting this fear into words makes it clear how little sense this makes. My fear is based on assumptions that I can't back up with any evidence. Of course, there is the fact that after about a week of getting new patrons regularly, no one else has supported the project. But I don't know if it's because of the essay. Maybe no new readers have found Kadambari, and those who are familiar with the book have already supported me. Maybe it was because I posted that essay on a Monday and people haven't had a chance to read it yet. Or maybe people just didn't want to support it--or perhaps they couldn't.
I don't know. So there's nothing logical to base my fear on. I feel less afraid when I say that. It's as if this fear is another being that can read these words as I write them, and when it sees that I realise its nature, it weakens because its cover has been blown.
It is certainly easier to put my words down now, because now that I've seen past the fear, my eyes have landed on my true goal here: to write essays about writing, 200 of them, and to share them here so that anyone who needs it can read them. I know I will need them too, because in writing, you fight the same battles over and over--the fear of getting started, the fear of not being good enough, the fear of getting rejected, the fear of not being read, and so on.
Every essay here in which I name my fears, in which I guide young writers (including my 16-year-old self) through my experiences, becomes a point of reference, a place to return to when I find myself struggling with the above problems. Maybe a week later I'll be afraid again, so if I post this essay now, future me would be able to read this and remember that she has dealt with this fear successfully in the past--which means that she can do so again. Writing about my fears, then, is what will give me the courage I need.