According to Stephen King in his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (Simon & Schuster, 2000), “The scariest moment is always just before you start.” I would say that I mostly agree with that, especially with regard to writing prose. For me, I have to kick myself to get started when writing a book review or a work of fiction, creative nonfiction, or say, a post for this newsletter. I’m usually anxious which tells me that I’m afraid of what readers will think or say. It doesn’t apply to writing poetry for me as much, though, in which case the scary moments can happen without warning and the poems are usually the better for it. I’m also not as anxious about what readers might think of my poetry because that part of my craft holds so many other possibilities while prose is comprised of sentences, each coming after the one before it. That first sentence, then, should be one that urges me to write more. That’s a lot of pressure.
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