Fear, Exposed – Featuring Monica O’Brien
Hola! Bonjour! Happy Tuesday.
As always, thrilled to bring you this week’s Fear, Exposed entry, written by Monica, O’Brien, who made me giddy when I heard she was writing a novel. I’ve known Monica since I first started TMFproject in the fall of 2009, and never had ANY IDEA what she was up to behind the scenes. Today, she talks a little bit about the personal fears she’s had throughout the process, and what she’s doing to push through them to become a damn rockstar.
(By the way, while we’re on the topic, I’d like to know what you think about my novel. You know–the future one I’ll be writing soon over countless pots of coffee. You guys know I can’t sit still and, despite all other projects, writing will always be my number one love. If you want to make me happy & bring good karma your way, {I guess that stuff is real?} take my quick two-question survey and give me your most-valued opinion.)
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I’ve been catching up on about six seasons of House over the winter break, and let me tell you, writing a House episode would be easy.
Each episode starts with someone going about their business, and then falling over and losing consciousness, with their loved ones hovering over them, shaking them and screaming “Dial 911!” Cut to House, the selfish but lovable doctor who runs Diagnostics at Princeton-Plainsboro, and his team of brilliant misfits who have messed up relationships due to their 100 hour workweeks. Then, the first diagnosis they come up with is wrong, the second diagnosis is wrong, and they run more tests. In between the diagnoses, the characters verbally spar over their messed up relationships due to their 100 hour workweeks. Finally, in almost every episode, the patient has a secret, has a heart attack, has a stroke, pees blood, has cancer, has an infection, and/or has an autoimmune disease.
The elements of a good House episode are obvious after watching about 30 hours of it. But if I actually sat down to write an episode, I’m sure I’d feel it… that nervous contraction of my stomach, the pounding of my heart. My fingers would hover over a keyboard attached to a blank screen, not flying across the keys, but just hovering, ready for an idea to take shape.
Seth Godin speaks a lot about the concept of shipping–and quite frankly, I’ve never been more scared to ship than I am to ship my latest project, a novel I’ve written.
The novel has all the elements it’s supposed to. It has characters who aren’t what they seem, it has secrets, it has romance, it has mystery, and it has paranormal elements that are so popular in teen fiction today.
I know that I’ve played the game as well as I can, but I’m still afraid. I’m afraid to ship.
When Ashley asked me if I wanted to write about fear, I wasn’t sure what I could add to the discussion.
I am not brave, by any means.
I was also hesitant because fear is not something you can solve in a blog post. Fear is something that everyone faces every day. Fear is something that you must practice conquering–every time you wake up, every time you leave your house, every time you state your opinion or answer someone’s question.
Every time you ship.
I’m not immune to fear, but here are some ways I force myself to face it:
Start small
Fear is something you practice, and it’s easier to practice in small chunks. Speak up at a meeting, accept that invitation, wear something that makes you look silly. If it’s 10pm and you haven’t done something slightly scary, are you really living?
When I first shared the first chapters with another living soul, I was so afraid that he was going to rip it to shreds. I’ve since shared the first few chapters with a few thousand of people (in fact, you can read them here: http://sevenhalosseries.com), but at the beginning, I only shared my vision with a chosen few that I called Alpha readers.
Lock yourself in
When I started training for the marathon in 2007, I could barely run three miles. I didn’t want to end up quitting during training, so I signed up for the marathon and pledged to raise money for breast cancer. Then, I publicized what I was doing and started collecting donations.
I’ve done this over and over again with challenges. Blogging is a particularly effective way to force yourself to commit. With the novel, I took out a half-page ad in a magazine.
Pretend you don’t ship
“What if?” is a powerful question; use it to your advantage. What will happen if you don’t do something?
If you don’t launch that project, you keep living paycheck to paycheck.
If you don’t send your resume, you stay at your dead-end job.
If you don’t go to that networking event, you miss the chance to pitch your start-up to investors.
Most of the time, “What if?” is scary, and hopefully, “What if?” is scarier than shipping.
Push through the act of asking
All of business is about making offers. You don’t need courage to convince someone to buy your book; you just need courage to make the offer.
We all know that people will say no when we ask for something, but we hope that some people will say yes. Forget about the “no” people until after you ship. A lot of people will ignore your offer, think your offer is bad, or realize they don’t need your offer. But asking is 90% of success, and it’s not as scary as shipping is.
Accept the no’s
There will be a lot of people who don’t read my book. There will be a lot of people who don’t like the genre, don’t like the characters, don’t like to read, or just don’t like me and my writing. Once I’ve pushed through the act of asking, I change my mindset. I assume that most people will answer “no.” I never assume a “yes;” assumptions are how people disappoint you.
A very smart person once told me, “Some will, some won’t, so what? Someone’s waiting.”
When you’re afraid to ship your project, your artwork, your talent, don’t forget: someone else is waiting for exactly what you’re offering.
Click here to read more about Monica’s novel.
Click here to perform an act of kindness & contribute to her project via Kickstarter.
Click here if you want to run away with me to Spain & eat tapas all day.
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