Guest Author - Elsa Neal

Halloween is an excellent time to check in with your goals and revamp them over the final two months of the year, so that you are ready to start the new year fresh and free.

One thing that can scuttle your goals is unnecessary anxiety and worry, and confronting your fears can open your mind to your opportunities.

Fear of rejection

Every writer goes through rejection, but knowing this doesn’t make experiencing it any easier. Fiction writing, in particular, is so personal that you can’t help but feel that your very self has been criticised and tossed out.

It’s important to detach from the rejection process – you have no control over the people reading your manuscript, so let go.

Fear of acceptance

But isn’t acceptance what every writer wants? Deep down, perhaps not. Acceptance comes with its own consequences, such as:

Fear of pressure

What if your acceptance is conditional on you writing a second, or even third, book similar in tone and style to the first? Two-book contracts are more common than single book deals (it makes better business sense), so start thinking about your next possible book as early as you can, and keep it as close in style as you can without it being too obviously a sequel.

Fear of success

Acceptance, and, following that, publication, also means you now have to do several different jobs to the writing career you chose: salesman, marketer, public speaker, to name a few. All jobs that are very alien to many writers. After all, if writers found public speaking easier than writing, wouldn’t they be in that field in the first place, instead of safely tucked behind a computer? (Publishers just don’t get it, do they?)

Fear of lack of time

Book tours, signings, meetings regarding contracts and covers, editing, meetings regarding the editing, more editing… all take time and energy away from writing – and, don’t forget, there’s that second book you promised you would write.

Fear of failure

What if, after all that time spent promoting your book, it still sinks into obscurity? Publishers are more comfortable taking a chance on complete newbies who show some promise, than they are throwing money after midlist authors whose books don’t sell more than a few dozen copies each time they launch.

Fear of exposure

What will your parents say when they read it? Will people think the book is about you? Is your book about you?

For all these fears, it is worth thinking of the most embarrassing, threatening, disastrous, and damaging results or reactions you can imagine. Get those scenes out of the back of your mind and really look at them. Write them down if you like.

Now write yourself a script handling each eventuality in a way you would be really proud of yourself for. Make your worst nightmares turn into the best opportunities – but remember the more you put yourself in active control of each step, rather than being passive and accepting “gifts” from another character, the more powerful this exercise will be.

Now write down your goals for the rest of this year, and go write that book!

---

If your greatest fears are related to book promotion and marketing, there is plenty you can do to both prepare yourself and your “product” for the ride.
These books have excellent ideas:
Plug Your Book! Online Book Marketing for Authors, Book Publicity through Social Networking by Steve Weber
The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't by Carolyn Howard-Johnson