It's okay to be afraid. (Use the fear of being creative to your advantage.)

As I wrote my novel, coming close to the ending, I started to freeze. My fingers stopped typing the words out, an almost sick feeling coming into the pit of my stomach and I didn't want to finish. I didn't want to end the novel. Not because I don't like endings (well, I don't), not because I didn't know what to write (because I did -- all those lovely outlines we do, right?), but because I feared the ending would suck. I was afraid that it wouldn't be good enough or measure up to published authors endings. I didn't want to fail. I didn't want to make it tens of thousands of words in and mess up the lat five thousand words.

Failure. It's like every person's worst fear. We fear failing those we love, those we respect. We fear losing our inspiration and desire. We also fear being creative.

Well that seems odd, doesn't it?



As creatives we spend a lot time making things up. We spend a lot escaping our reality to quite literally create. We spend a heck of a lot of time in our own minds. Thinking, drawing, writing, making. Even dancers mark the steps in their minds. Actors keep rehearsing their lines inside their heads. And yeah, some of us creatives love getting outside of our minds, love sharing the things that are deep inside.

But I think at some point in time, everyone in their life goes through this. It's hard to share what's inside. We fear what's inside of us, because we think as soon as we get it out no one will like it. We fear that we won't like it. All the time and energy we put into ourselves, we put into being creative so that others can enjoy what we do, and yet we ourselves fear we won't like what we create.

Have you ever felt like God during Noah's time? Where everything seems to just be going out of whack and you want to destroy everything? You want to just wipe it all out and perhaps start over, just to have the same thing happen again? You want to wipe out your creation, burn it with fire, drown it in a flood. And for what? Why? Why is it when we actually get to drawing, to dancing in front of people, or writing out our novels we have that small nagging feeling in the back our minds that is fear and/or worry? Most of the time, it is because we don't want to screw up. We don't want to fail or disappoint both ourselves and others.

I don't get stage fright, really. I get that nervous feeling right before going out onto the stage to dance, but as soon as I am there -- when the lights are dimmed and the crowd is hushed -- I feel fine. There's always that "what if I mess up?" and "what if the crowd or judges don't like it?" I mean, a standing ovation is awesome, but not all the time will we get those in life. It doesn't mean that you were bad. It doesn't mean you give up. So you slip or mess up in the "dance". Like my dance instructor always tells me and the other girls: "If you stumble, make it apart of the dance."

So we all don't end up like J.K. Rowling with our own story world built into a park. We all don't end up like Vincent van Gogh with our art going for millions of dollars and being displayed in some of the best art museums. We all don't end up like Benedict Cumberbatch where he is in so many films it takes two years to film a season of Sherlock. (:P)

But honestly, people. The things you do matter. The things you create with your bare hands, matters Being creative isn't without all the fear and worry. It's hard to completely rid of it and I'm not sure we are ever supposed to be fearless about it.

Another thing my dance instructor tells us is: "Put your nervous energy into your dance. Take all the fear and worry and put it into giving your song meaning, your dance feeling."

Do the same for everything in life. If it makes you nervous, if it makes you fear, channel all that into a way of making your creative project better. Use the fear and worry to help write. Use those feelings to make your acting better. Use them to help draw a scared child or anything else. Use the fear to help take more meaningful pictures...

When I didn't want to write the ending of my novel, I used that little bit of fear and worry to create a very emotional scene that wasn't actually supposed to be in my novel. But I loved how it turned out. To me, that's all that matters.

It's okay to be afraid. It's okay to fear the future, to fear your own creativity, so long as it doesn't stop you from doing what you love.