One week before the new year fires up a fresh start. Actually, if you have read all the previous posts about goals, you should be thinking that the beginning of every week fires up a fresh start. Keep everything always starting over, remember, that way when you miss, you just start over and all is fresh, with a short term goal for that week.

And then those goals add right up by the end of the year. Got all that figured, right? Read all the previous posts on goals? Do so before going any farther on this one, otherwise this will sound very confusing at times.

I got a bunch of questions from the last two posts about agents and editors. Agents work for writers, they are employees of writers, they do not buy books. If you keep that firmly in mind, you will be in good shape in the long run. If you sell a book, you must have an agent in the mix, but you do not need an agent to sell a book. And that’s all I’m saying on that topic.

Which leads me right into the next main topic concerning goals.

Fear.

Yup, fear is a huge monster sitting in your office, between your ears, and will make you do really, really stupid things unless you can clear it out every so often and think clearly.

So where does fear come into writing and publishing and aiming at your long term dreams? Simply everywhere. Fear has the focused goal to stop you. And it will, all the time, in many, many ways.

No real logical place to start talking about fear in writing, since it is in all aspects of writing and the business, so I’m just going to toss out examples at random and see where this all leads.

Example: You are excited about your book or story idea, have spent a few weeks being successful at your goals of getting to your writing, and then one day you wake up and the book seems like crap, you are convinced you are wasting your time, and that you should start something fresh. Fear got you. Fear of trusting your writing, fear of finishing something, fear of failure, fear of ridicule when someone reads it, and so on. Fear comes out like this: “You’re not good enough. What makes you think you could ever write at a national level? Or even finish something as big as a novel?”

Bam, you’re going to find reasons to miss a session, miss your weekly goal, and at that point months will go by because you let the fear voice win.

You can’t even get past Heinlein’s Rule #1. You must write. But this fear has stopped you and at the end of 2009 you will be very disappointed with yourself.

Example: You stop on a project because it’s garbage and start another one, and then again and again. You’re hitting all your weekly page goals, but never finishing anything and mailing it. Why? Fear.

On this one, Heinlein’s Rule #2 plays big. You have this deep fear of being laughed at, that your writing isn’t good enough, that people will stop you and your writing, so it’s just easier to stop yourself.

Example: But you get past that all right, and finish a novel. Great. It’s an event, right, it’s important because it took you a lot of time to write it, right? (Read the previous posts <g>) Nope, it’s just a story, but you need, you MUST rewrite it, polish it, make it PERFECT. Right?

Why? Because of fear, that’s why. The rewriting myth is just fear based and that’s why it’s so deep.

Heinlein’s Rule #3 is only rewrite to editorial demand. So, you have to have the courage, the trust in your own ability. You spell check it, give it to a first reader, only fix what they say needs fixing, and then mail it to editors.

No editor will come to your house and shoot you if you don’t give them a perfect book that is perfect for their line and has every word perfect. Nope, never happens, no matter what beginning writers think. The ugly truth is that editors can barely remember all the writers’ names they buy from, let alone the thousands of books they glance at and don’t take. No one remembers out there unless you do something stupid like insult them. You act like a professional, send them a book, and if it doesn’t fit what they are looking for, they will reject it and that’s it. They won’t remember you or even think about you. Nothing all to be afraid of because you have it on many other editor’s desks, remember? One of them will show good taste and buy it eventually.

But this fear that everything you write must be perfect is a killer. No story is perfect, no book is perfect. Doesn’t happen. And who would be the person to say it was perfect anyway? A book I love by an author I love to read is hated by my friends who think it’s the worst thing written. Nothing is ever perfect, folks. Sorry to break that bubble.

So Heinlein’s Rule #3 shouts directly at this fear.

Example: Book is done, sitting on your desk, you’re pounding along on a new one, meeting your page goals just fine and dandy, and months go by and the first book sits there. I personally know of writers who have up to a dozen books just sitting, not in the mail to anyone. Why? Yup, you guessed it. Fear.

This breaking of Heinlein’s Rule #4 comes about like this: I don’t have the time right now to mail it, I need to do “market research” before I can mail it, I don’t feel that good about that book, and so on and so on. I’ve heard them all and said a bunch of them myself.

This is the place that I fall down at times. I tend to write stories and novels and then not mail them. Now, granted, every novel I have finished is now in the mail to editors in one form or another. But not every short story. In fact, I would guess I have a good dozen new stories that have never been mailed, or only mailed once or twice. That’s getting fixed with my new challenge to myself. But why do I do that? Why do other writers do that? Fear, plain and simple. I have no issue with Heinlein’s first three rules, but rule #4 and #5 are where my focus must be this next year.

The other night, sitting around a wonderful dinner with four other professional writers, I made a comment about how hard Heinlein’s Rules are to follow and my wife, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, turned to me and said simply, “I have always followed them and still do.”

And, of course, she was the most successful writer sitting at the table. Damn, how many times do I have to shove back this fear issue for myself and climb back into the game? It seems, all the time.

So watch for the fear in these goals. It will stop you at one stage or another, or maybe at a bunch of places along the way through the year. It comes in sideways, it’s triggered sometimes by friends and family, but most of the time it is just a simple twisting in the stomach that makes you stop doing what you know is right and do something else, often without thinking about it.

And I have a hunch that just reading this post twisted a lot of stomachs out there, not because the writing sucked, but because I said something that hit home and that you don’t agree with it. Fine to not agree with these rantings, fine to do something else with your writing. No problem by me. But make sure you are acting from a clear reason that works for you, not from simple fear.

Fear. It really is the elephant in the room that you have to eat one bite at a time.

Cheers, Dean