I flatter myself I'm not wholly chicken. I do think it takes a certain amount of bravery to be an artist of any sort. You have to be willing to expose yourself in all kinds of ways. I write things, sometimes, thinking oh, no. I shouldn't write that- people will think this character is me and that I'm a weirdo (not saying I ain't, but still, who wants that for their grand epitaph?). Or worrying that a piece of writing makes me look immature or conceited or obsessed. Or just exposes me as a crappy writer...
I look into Bayles and Orland's Art & Fear from time to time, when I forget what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. At the end of the day (read: at the end of my life) I can't guarantee that anything I will have written will be meaningful to anyone, so I might as well make sure it's meaningful to me. I'm making use of the vacuum, I guess. Usually, I accuse the vacuum of being guilty of giving me so much space that I lose the plot, quite literally. The upside is that I have enough space to decide, firmly, if I'm willing to stand behind a piece long before anybody else has seen it. Happy writing, Bloglodytes. Keep pecking away at those keyboards.
