Give the Fear Factor a Great Big Hug

The principle here I call Transfer of Funds:  moving resources from where we're rich to where we're running near empty.

In the final stretch of this novel, I'm already 'looking forward' to the holy terror of more naked pages when I begin the next.  Of course, I can draw on memory and experience, since I have published four novels and written close to a dozen.  I  know the rhythms that make up the writing of  a novel.  I know the pains will pass and confidence will come again.

But that's all Then...and this is Now.  Right now I should be busy building up a  new account that I'll entitle Fearlessness.  Each day, or maybe a few times each day, I'll meet head-on something that scares me.  The size of the scare doesn't matter, not all of the challenges have to be big.  What I want to do, though, is get in the groove of facing fear eyeball to eyeball:  try something entirely different in the next query letters...square off against an aggressor...learn to write a synopsis that rocks.

If this habit becomes the real heart of my day, it can also become the real heart of my art--and I can transfer funds from it to any naked page.