Am I a Fearless Writer?

This week, I’m taking Fearless Writing, a class taught by Crescent Dragonwagon, children’s book author, cookbook author, writer and fantastic person.

Talk to Your Writing about Your Fears

On this last evening of Fearless Writing, we dialogued with our writing. CD asked us to let our writing take on a persona and voice.

  • Step One: From a first person POV of Writing, we wrote about 10-12 statements, that CD called Stepping Stones and another writer called Foundations. Examples: I have had some successes. I have produced three novels and a lot of drafts in the last ten years. I make your daughter happy when she reads me.
  • Step Two: Now, you, the Writer gets to make about 10-12 statements, or Stepping Stones, about Writing. Examples: I am obsessed with you. I am embarrassed that you haven’t produced more stories that sell. My daughter doesn’t understand why you take so much of my time.
  • Step Three: Write a dialogue between the Writing and the Writer.
    Example:

    • Me: You’ve been rather sluggish lately.
    • Writing: That’s your fault. You haven’t spent enough time with me to let me get the thinking done that I need in order to write clearly.
    • Me: Really? I keep feeling like that thinking time is wasted time. Do you really need that?

I Like My Writing; My Writing Likes Me

After this dialogue, I was happy because I like My Writing and My Writing likes Me. But even after the 40 minute free write we did, I found there are more issues we need to talk about.

Going back over the Stepping Stones list for Writing and Writer, I found some conflicts. For example, they didn’t always agree with issues of standards, of when you know a mss is ready to send out. I figure we ought to agree on something that important. So, I’ll probably repeat the process and dialogue with Writing about that. In all, I identified about five issues that we need to discuss.

Fearless Writing is highly recommended if you are in a time of your life when you need to face the issues surrounding creativity, the whys of your work, or how to keep writing and the writing life in balance with the rest of your life. Many more activities, techniques than I could possibly share here.

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