Fear of losing it

This month's Writing Queensland is quite down-beat (which I wouldn't dare complain about after my rant a couple of months ago).

There's my aforesaid rant in the letters section, there's a horrifying article by an anonymous writer who, despite a $20,000 advance and a $10,000 writers' grant was almost edited out of existence, and then Adair Jones takes a look at the Kaavya Viswanathan saga.

It got me thinking again about why we write.

I still think there's a bit of an ego aspect there -- having people validate your mode of expression.

There's also the sheer joy of immersing yourself in a world of your own creation. It's like reading, but even more fun.

And then there's the satisfaction of getting better at it (but I think this goes back to the ego thing).

But what I've been thinking about lately is fear of losing the story.

Before my son was born I had ideas for stories and I did some writing, but I think I was scared of fucking it up, of not being able to properly communicate the vision that was so clear in my mind.

(This, coupled with the fact that I never had an Amiga as a kid, manifested itself as many wasted hours playing Ghost Recon and Fifa 2003).

Now, however, with so little time to write, it's the fear of losing the story.

You can jot down the ideas, but I don't think that's enough. For me at least, I feel if I don't start writing when the idea is burning brightly, I'll lose the feel of the story. And once it's gone, it's never really the same.

(Although, given that I could be writing the story right now instead of crapping on here, maybe I'm still scared of fucking it up!)