By: ErynFarisWrites
Monday, August 01, 2016

In my quest for finding apps that would help with mapping my creativity and lay a foundation for the organized writer in me, I found WriteHackr online magazine. I thumbed through the free magazine that is offered to reel you into a paid subscription and opted to buy one magazine in a cautious journey through this intriguing literary guide.

It was there I came across an article written by Bryan Collins called “What New Writers Need to Know About Fear”. At first, I almost thumbed past it with the thought that I did not fear writing, I just couldn’t find my beginning, middle, and end. But my eyes caught the largely placed lettering of his first topic point, 1. I don’t know where to start.. Holy shit, you either? It was that one simple sentence, that breakthrough moment when I realized that I am not the only one who has this issue. There was this pivotal moment in my writing experience where I actually felt an ease wash over me and as I continued reading through his article, I ended it with that ah-ha moment that I am a writer and this lack of content was only a starting point that most writers have to overcome before they fill endless pages of mind altering words.

I often would say to myself, and anyone that would listen, that I was going to write everyday, only to fail at my own personal goal. Mr. Collins offered an alternative to this, start with merely five minutes a day, then work to ten, twenty and so on. I can do this, I spend more than five minutes a day in my little cubicle thinking about writing and everything I want to write about.

He shared his own struggles, his own failures with writing, and the need for deadlines from others to even finish his created works. Wow! I could relate wholeheartedly, I mean was he actually writing about me? I have four journals, none of which I have yet to completely fill and often do not write in continuously. There are months between entries, some due to lack of effort and other times a constant switching between each journal. I’ve yet to determine why I do this, only that there is an inability to finish. I can write the meat of the story I wish to tell, but to start and end it fails to meet with the end of my pen.

While I’m still nowhere near writing a Pulitzer Prize winning novel, or even something you would find on the New York Times bestseller list, I found Mr. Collins article to be a something of an old pirate’s map that would lead me to the very treasure I was searching for. I had to step back and analyze what it was that was keeping me from this passion that burned deep inside me. I had never looked at it as fear, but atlas, it was exactly the answer to all my mind poking and desperate inner pleas to write something, anything.

His admission that he was nobody in point 2. Who am I to Write.. was a personal hit home for me. Through all my self-help reading from other published writers, none offered this real life view that writers face. That one question we turn over and over in our head, the very thought of “why am I worthy of writing?” He was forthcoming in the rejection he received and that there would be rejection throughout the career of a writer, but it was up to you to give yourself permission to write. Whether you write for the purpose of publication, to get people involved through a blog, or even your daily journal, you are a writer and your start has to begin somewhere.

So where do I start? Mr. Collins offered great advice in finding writing workshops, starting a blog, and entering contests. I admit, I have a blog that is lacking the attention it deserves and that must be a change I make. Only I can determine my destiny; not everyone will like what I have to say. I will find rejection many times along the way, but if I give up on my dreams then I’ve given my future to others who may not see the true value in me.