Show No Fear

How many times have you heard Hollywood use that line? It's like a magic talisman used for defeating bad guys, aliens and hostile adults.

Which is why Show No Fear has been replaying in my mind for months now. I have my graphs, charts, synopses and query letters ready to go. They are arranged neatly on the counter waiting, not to gather dust, but to be sent off to their future homes at publishers and book stores. But they are a little like the orphans in a lot of cheesy movies – they have watched other kids find a home, but the prospective parents always pass them by despite their best smile and the viewer knowledge that this one, this one, is the true gem. If only...

This, dear readers, is the real crunch for a writer, the difference between the person who is going to write “some day” and the writer who is fighting to be published. The completely schizophrenic certainty that the manuscript is the best ever written and obviously second-rate can get the most confident writer tied into knots of delays and indecision. To my mind, challenging a dream by sending it out into the world takes courage. Despite the assertion that it isn’t the writer’s worth being judged, but only that of the work, the real writer knows that a piece of her soul has been interwoven with those black letters on the white page. Who in her right mind would risk that level of destruction?

A writer will risk that. The silent courage to create in solitude is transformed into the determined courage needed to take on the world. How magical is that?

One life. One dream. Show all the fear you want – just go for it.


f & f
Susan