Fear Is No Argument

Here I am, in this rather unfamiliar place. I’ve come this far and now I stand at the age of the cliff blindfolded and don’t know if I’m able to jump. All of a sudden I lost my selfconfidence.

All these years that I’ve worked and learned and strived to become the writer I yesterday still thought I am seem as if I’ve done nothing but to clear the path for my crash landing.

Okay, there are no vampires, no explosions, no sex scenes in the piece I’ve written. No one dies in it. It is not fast paced, not taking you into some unknown world. It’s just a story, pure, simple, quiet. No one will want to read that, right?

Then why did I have it translated, almost ready to self-publish in German and English? Why did I have someone do the artwork for the cover? Did I really think I can proove there is an audience when publishing houses said there isn’t?

Here I am, so afraid to put my novel out that it takes my breath away. What is it I fear so much?

I know there are people out there just waiting to see me fall. I won’t die because of this. I’m fully aware that there is no army behind me, I’m just a lonesome warrior who risks to become the joke.

No one’s going to hold me, tend to my nosebled and lend me a hand to get up if I’ll end up on the ground with a twisted leg. I’ll have to walk into and through this alone, and there could be quite a few „told you so“s.

So what if I’m wrong? What if I’m not the writer I thought I could be? If I have no talent? If it’s all just ambition without any ground to stand on? Can I face such a truth? What will this do to me?

I don’t write to become rich and famous. I don’t need prizes, flashlights, limousines and tv shows. I’m just a storyteller. I’ve always been.

I love words. I love to put them in rhythm so that a sentence starts to glow. I love to touch a soul with nothing but a metaphor. But what if I only think I can do all that? What if I’m fooling myself?

All this is running around in circles in my head as I’m waiting for my editor to have waded through 170 pages. And in a sad way I somehow wish she’ll take so much more time to do it that I… So that I do what?

I’ve come this far. I can’t stop here. The worst that can happen is that no one buys it, that not even friends read or say it’s boring. But then at least I’ll know.

I once was told by someone whose encouragement brought me far enough to not quit writing in more than one of my darkest moments: „walk into what you fear“. I’ll do that with my world on fire and the water rising.

Failure is not an option. Only not trying would mean I failed.

And fear is no argument.

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