What am I really afraid of as a writer?
No, not writer’s block. I don’t ever experience writer’s block. I am lazy, that’s all. And I know that.
Rejected work? Been through a lot of that. Though I get jitters, I could even get sad and depressed, I’m not really afraid of getting rejections. As long as I get notes on how I should improve.
Detractors? Bashers? Nah! Am not afraid of them. They might tick me off. Maybe I’d put them on my hit list for saying bad things about my work. It’s different, you see, when one is given criticism vs. plain old bashing. Bashing’s malicious, seeking only to smear dirt on one’s rep.
Dissatisfied readers? Hmm… That would be a sad occurrence but one has to accept, readers have different tastes. But wait, if the reader is dissatisfied because I am suddenly producing below quality work? Knowing this would probably be a wake-up call for me. To be more on my toes. Yeah, I guess this is something I would be afraid of.
Ultimately though, what scares me is that years later, when the readers who have come to love my stories go back and reread my books in their more mature years, they’d smirk and admonish themselves and say, “I used to like this stuff?”
Yep. That’s what I am actually afraid of. So I try my darnedest to make my stories cut across all ages. So that later on, even if in a reader’s advanced years she would think the story is no longer for her, she would still recall with fondness how happy and how kilig she felt when she first read the story.
What about you? What are you afraid of as a writer?
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