How do you let go of fears?
I’ve been plagued by them since I sent Happy Tango off and tried to let go. After sobbing to C. last night, I felt slightly better; felt like I was crying the book out of me really; crying my heart out; the two things are kind of the same you see.
Yesterday, in the bathroom mirror, I caught a glimpse of maybe, just maybe why some amazingly talented artists don’t live to see their stuff out there in the world, and why some never get their art out there at all. Despite all my big words about living my dreams, and even my big(gish) actions in trying to do so, inside I am totally terrified that I’m not up to the job, not good enough, that the words I’ve written will be ridiculed. And it’s not that I don’t believe in the book. I DO. I think that it’s absolutely bloody brilliant… 11 fab Rules for landing the happiest possible tangos in Buenos Aires; an A to Z to put you in the know; a strategy for deciding where to dance first… all utter genius!
But writing that on this page (thank you Barbie) and remembering it are two very different things (thank you VOD); I’m haunted by the small errors, the things I got wrong, that you might come out of somewhere and turn left instead of right because of a mistake I made, or that my opinion of a place might be completely different to yours (gonna happen, of course), or dare I say it, a word I missed out because I was so tired by the end of it all, that I couldn’t really judge whether or not I was reading aloud what I’d actually written. I had some amazing help with my book along the way: a fabulous editor; a brilliant sub-editor; my test readers; my darling mum, who proof read it; but in the end it was just me, in the early hours, surrounded by mountains of papers and tango magazines and maps, making the final amendments and deciding to send it off to the designers (I am the publisher too, this time round, you see). Should I have kept it longer? Visited places all over again? Pestered a friend to read it one more time, and delayed while they did (and while I made more changes that would have meant more errors)? On balance, nooo – it had to go before my life got lost in it; but in my head, if only… and what if? This is grim thinking, and getting me absolutely nowhere.
I’m hesitant to write about this stuff. But doing so is part of my big(gish) actions to step off the edge, live my dreams, and inspire others. Living your dreams sounds nice and cool and fabuloso, but it doesn’t mean it’s easy. And I prefer to tell the truth about that.
Someone sent me a link to a website this week: thegapingvoid.com. It’s very marvellous for people like me. Tells us sharply (and in pictures, so that we can still get the message in our madder moments) that we are not alone, and that we should get on and bloody well do it anyway. And I will. You know it. Right now though I feel like my book has been caught on camera. The snapshot has been taken, and there’s no going back. The gaping void? Well, exacto.
Anyone else ever felt like this? Or is it just me and the little girl in the bathroom mirror, and the genius guy who draws those spot-on cartoons?
