Tag Archive: fear


Its The Job That Never Gets Started As Takes Longest To Finish

Filed under: My Writing, Silk Over Razor Blades — 15 Comments
September 7, 2012

One of my favourite quotes from The Lord Of The Rings. Not earth shattering, or deeply moving, just plain, sensible advice. And from one of my favourite characters; Sam Gamgee. He’s quoting his dad of course – the Old Gaffer – but its none the less something he says to Frodo when they are starting to feel the pain of the day to day trudge towards Mount Doom.

So why am I starting with this quote?

Silk Over Razor Blades (SORB) has had a good rest period. I’ve written lots (LOTS) of flash, a couple of short stories and a novella since looking at it last. Its time I went back to it and gave it a bashing like it will never forget. I need to finish it. It needs to be done.

I downloaded a trail version of Scrivenor and separated the whole manuscript into chapters (I really like Scrivenor and have decided that I’m going to buy it at some point, but that’s a separate post). Then I started picking at the first chapter which, in truth, is the worst of the lot and needs some really rough treatment to be the way I want it to be.

Then I stopped. I stopped dead and haven’t looked at it since.

That was over a fortnight ago.

I feel so… I can’t even think of the right word for how I feel. I’m going to rest with ‘scared’ because that’s the closest approximation I can make.

I think back to 2010, when I started querying and I know now that I wasn’t ready. Since then, the piece has had a savage rewrite and lost about 30,000 words that were just dead weight. Now I’m looking at it again, desperate to query it but terrified to take the last steps which will enable me to do so. I have a plethora of excuses (hehee, thanks Char! I was desperate to get it into a blog post!) and though valid (some of them) they shouldn’t stop me working. Not when this is what I want (what I really, really want).

(yes, even now I can’t take myself seriously)

When I think of how much this story means to me, and how long I’ve spent on it, my chest constricts and its hard to breathe. I can feel my mouth drying out even as I write this and there’s an annoying little tic in my left eye (though that may be more to do with the fly that just took a kamikaze dive at my face). Clearly this novel is the source of an emotional roller coaster for me, such that the mere thought of giving it the last edit it needs to really shine, fills me with dread.

What if I can’t do it?
What if I don’t like it?
What if, when its all done and there really is no more I can do, its still not good enough?!
Crying face from OpenClipArt

I sit in front of the computer and do every other job in the world except the one that needs doing most. And ‘needs’ is certainly the right word. I need to do this. If only for the closure and the ability to move on afterwards I need to do this.

But if I don’t start, I’ll never finish.
*sigh*

Thanks Sam Gamgee. I think the time has come. I think SORB is finally going to get the editing work it needs to go out into the big wide world. I have to let my baby go….

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Bonus Blog: Knowing Fear

Filed under: Real Life Chatter — 22 Comments
June 15, 2012

I’ve been scared before. Not really scared, but enough that I felt uncomfortable. That’s probably a more accurate word, truth be told; uncomfortable. These days, however, my life is one big ball of fear. The constant terror that something is going to happen to my boys.My baby boysThe first time I left the house with them (not counting coming home from the hospital) was to talk to the university and then to town. I was still a bit sore from the c-section and walking very carefully so as not to hurt my stomach. All I could think of was how loud the traffic was and how many bugs were in the air and the smog from the cars and how crazy the drivers are and in general how terribly dangerous the entire world is. All of it! A nightmare of awful things out there to hurt my boys.

Since then I’ve become used to using the pram and pushing them around, but I’m constantly alert for all the dangers that are rife in the world. I can’t help it. I suppose its natural. I’ve stopped worrying about myself though; that’s the odd part. Or at least I’m not concerned about myself until my getting hurt means I can’t take care of the boys. That’s all I care about now; keeping them safe, warm, fed and loved. I never, in a million years would have imagined that I could adjust the things that frighten me so suddenly and so completely.

A colleague at work once said that having a child is like agreeing to have your heart walking around outside your body. I’m inclined to agree with her. Every time I look at these boys my heart twists in a really savage way, either with love, or with terror that something might happen to them. I hear news stories about people who have lost their babies or others who have lost a child… everything in me writhes in agony at the thought. Hell, the worst possible thing that could happen to me would be something happening to my boys and for the first time in my life I understand.

I understand why Mum looked so concerned when she left me at uni for the very first time. I understand why Dad has been subtly suggesting that I move back to London ever since I finished uni. They want that part of their heart closer to them where they can see and look after it. Never in a million years did I ever believe I could feel that way about anybody. But I do. And therein lies the fear.

Yesterday, when we were coming home, a fly landed on Michael’s face as we were pushing the pram along. I freaked out and stopped so I could pluck it off his face. I’ve never done that before. Not even when an insect landed on me, because I don’t like to touch them. I hate their squidgy little bodies and just the ick-factor that surrounds insects. I pulled that thing off his face like it was nothing.

Makes me wonder how I’ll deal with a spider on either of them. I have a REAL problem with spiders, but that may well be outweighed by how much I want to protect the boys. o.O

I’ll get back to you on that one if it comes up.

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Film Review: The Green Lantern

Filed under: Film, Reviews — Leave a comment
April 28, 2012

Green lantern movie posterI know its a comic book film, but its far cheesier than many I have seen in the past.

A cocky, ‘fearless’ military jet pilot is gifted a magical green ring which bestows its powers on him so that he may fight the powers of evil.

Hmmm.

I bet in comic form, the story was absolutely fabulous, but for some reason, it was just missing something for me. Not that Ryan Reynolds wasn’t absolutely lovely in all that skin tight green, but there is something that feels quite hacknied about fighting ‘fear’ with ‘will.’

And he kept saying it was about the forces of evil. Each time he said it, I twitched because fear isn’t evil. In of itself, its a very natural and in some places necessary response.

Can you imagine if nobody was afraid of anything?! What sort of mayhem would the world be in right now? Probably not that that much worse than it currently is, but no one would be too afraid to jump off bridges, or be rude to strangers, or try out drugs, or leap in front of cars. There are all sorts of things to be afraid of, and, in my mind, a lack of fear, means a lack of things to lose. Like your life? Isn’t that important? To not have even the most basic fear of losing your life… seems a bit much to me. We’re only human after all.

Though that did turn out to be a good message of the film in the end. Fearlessness and courage are two utterly different things.

Still, it was pleasant enough to watch, with the standard, disfigured and physically crippled villian and the love interest who, most pleasant of all, was not as dumb as a bag of rocks! In actual fact, she did a couple of things that helped her avoid disappointing me, including recognising her best friend, even with the stupid little green mask on. A feat that even Lois Lane never managed with Clark and those utterly daft glasses. -_- Well done that woman!

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80 Post Challenge – Post 53

Filed under: 80 Post Challenge, Real Life Chatter — 3 Comments
March 8, 2012

Write about your greatest fear

There are lots of rubbish, crappy things I could write about here. All those silly little phobias that you carry over from childhood; the dark, monsters under the bed etc. I’m not going to write about those, simply because they aren’t what this question is about.

My greatest fear, something I discovered last night, is that everything I’ve done so far with my life is a waste. That may sound a bit melodramatic, but at the moment I’m being forced to reassess my life and prioritise in a way that makes previous attempts look like a joke! Big whoop – I now have a timetable that tells me what I should be writing and when… I’ve cut out those activities that I just don’t have time for so I can give my focus over to writing. Well done, Illy; I should have done that years ago. -_-

Pretty much everything I've written over the years in hard copy (except for recent - last three years - work)No, no, I mean in the upcoming months I’m going to have to choose between my children and my writing. And that’s not even a choice! Of course my children are going to win that little bout; there’s no contest there. But what does that mean about everything I’ve been planning and writing and putting together for the last five years?

Not to say that my twins will make it impossible to do any writing; but it will make it horrendously difficult. And I can already see that my priorities are changing. I’ve been choosing to stay in and rest rather than go out and play games. Or I’ve stepped away from a computer where good things were spilling out of my fingers so I could write details down on my little ‘I-felt-the-twins-kick-me-chart.’ Even now, before they’ve shown up, writing is getting pushed further and further back in my schedule.

My word count for January was fabulous (if I do say so myself), February wasn’t bad, but I’m going to struggle to meet March if I don’t pull my finger out.

So what does all this mean? Does it mean that my mind is slowly working towards saying ‘I don’t want to do this any more? I want to give myself utterly over to the two new lives that are going to depend on me for everything for the first stage of their lives? And then, of course, continue to depend on me as they grow?’ I know that’s what its like; because I still lean heavily on my mother. She doesn’t need to feed me, clothe me or burp me any more, but there are times when I need to hear her voice so badly that I can’t think of anything else. That’s the sort of thing I’m scared of, because I already know that if I am writing something in… I don’t know- twenty years time and one of my children phones me with a crisis, the writing will be forgotten in an instant. I’d get in a car and drive straight to them if they needed me, because that’s what I want to do for them. So writing automatically takes a back seat.

My greatest fear – at least right now – is that all the grand plans and novels I have planned will take a back seat to my children and that I have, in effect wasted my time up to now. Part of that fear will be realised as soon as they pop out of me – because my writing, including this blog I suppose – will end up way down the list of priorities after I’ve taken care of what they need, but the rest? I don’t know if it’s a waste; I don’t know if I can still do as much or push as far as I was planning this time last year. And that’s what’s scary; the unknown.

 

 

 

 

My 80 Post Challenge is brought to you with help from Tom Slatin’s 80 Journal Writing Prompts.

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Bonus Blog: The Scariest Place In The World?

Filed under: Real Life Chatter — 4 Comments
February 6, 2012


Something like this, right? I bet, with a title like that… this is the sort of place you’re thinking of right now.

HA! Guess again…You might not think so, but a child’s birthday party… shit, that is the scariest place in the world!

Not that I didn’t enjoy myself; it was actually incredibly pleasant, but getting an insight into the following things was enough to make me look down at my increasingly bulging stomach and want to cry:

  1. Kids can (and will) put anything in their mouths.
  2. Kids do not like to share
  3. Kids are capable of incredible acrobatic feats, though they still end up sitting on the floor sobbing, when done
  4. Kids move incredibly fast (straight out the front door and onto the slushy, busy street) when you aren’t looking
  5. Kids like sugar (and go crazy after eating copious amounts of it)
  6. Kids can (and will) demand things at great volume and will continue to do so until they get what they want
  7. Kids can make a mess in less time than it takes to pick up your own glass of lemonade

Yes… All this and more besides, I realised as I sat down amongst them and watched the table of cakes and sugary treats get messier and messier.
This I realised, as I moved a hand to take a chocolate biscuit from a tray, only to find another much smaller, but far quicker hand, snatching said biscuit away before I could reach it. And then taking the tray for good measure.
This I realised as I saw one lad snatch a cocktail sausage off the floor and shove it into his mouth; well before I could even raise a hand to shout his mother who was significantly closer and had half a chance of stopping him.

*sigh*

But do you know what else? Through it all, I also realised these things:

  1. Kids are incredibly cute.
  2. Kids are very loving.
  3. A child’s smile can be one of the most beautiful things in the world, second only to their laughter, which is full and real and utterly unjaded
  4. A child loves and needs you unconditionally and will, if you time it right, offer you the biscuit they just snatched away from some unsuspecting onlooker. You know… just in case you want it.

So… with all these things in mind, I’m not entirely certain that I’m any more prepared for the arrival of my babies, but I’m certainly starting to think ahead as to how to avoid my house looking like a sugar-dusted bomb site once the (double) birthday party is over.

:-/ Please, please tell me its possible!

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