I have anxiety and fear of failure about a lot of things, depending on what I'm working on at the moment. I have three books out there in the big scary red ocean doing their thing, maybe sinking, maybe floating, maybe headed to some distant shore. Who knows? I can't think about it or I drive myself crazy.
Fear of failure can be paralyzing, keeping one from acting or moving forward. I cope by reminding myself that better people than me have failed. And what's failure anyway, but success postponed?
Now that I'm launching my massive, nearly two-year project in the making,
Celerytree.com, and it's out there with doors open, the fear of failure creeps up.
I remember when
Farm Girl was first published and listed on Amazon, and suddenly one day a little device appeared under the cover image with the words "Download this book to read on the Kindle."
My thoughts at the time:
What in the world is a Kindle and why should I care?
I'm not saying that Celery Tree will become anything like Amazon or the Kindle. But I like to remind myself that the Kindle was pretty much ignored for its first three years. If Amazon hadn't believed in the concept and kept it out there, it would have faded away before it had a chance to change the world.
Failure is success postponed.
It's the first Wednesday in December, and this is an insecure writer's post. Hi, Alex.