Kimberly Gardner

This week I’m starting a new project. It’s a story for an anthology to be released later this year, and until a few days ago I had no clue what I was going to write about.

Then the other day I was day-dreaming — Er, I mean, working on my idea, brainstorming a few possibilities, and my first hero for the new story popped into my head.

For me the best stories always begin with an intriguing character. So not wanting to loose this thread, I dashed off a paragraph describing who he is and a little about his background. Here’s what I came up with:

“Zach Jensen is a cop. That is he used to be a cop until the night he had to shoot a perpetrator who was pointing a gun at him. Now he’s a retired cop on disability who owns a bookstore that he bought with his life partner who died two years ago. Ever since Jay’s death Zach has mostly neglected the store, doing only the essentials and leaving it to mostly run itself. Luckily Zach and Jay had lots of friends and the community has been incredibly supportive or the place would have gone under by now and Zach would have left.

But something keeps him there. Maybe it’s the memories of when he and Jay were there and happy. Maybe it’s the friends he’s made. Or maybe it’s that he’s determined not to sell out to that huge chain bookstore that’s been trying to drive him out of business. Whatever it is that kepes him there, he’s trying to make a go of it, bring the place back to what it was before Jay died. Except some days, like this one, Zach is sure he’s not up to the challenge.”

Not bad for something straight out of my head.

But then as I began to think about who Zach’s hero would be and brainstorm possible scenes, I felt the first frisson of doubt.

Would this story be any good? Would it work for the anthology for which I intended it? Would the characters jump up and dance for me? Or would they turn their backs and refuse to play the game I’d set up for them?

I call this the fear factor. It’s that sometimes niggling, sometimes overwhelming, feeling that this time I’m not going to be able to finish the book, that this time the idea is too weak to hold together.

It happens to me every time I begin something new. That isn’t the only time, of course. I get that doubt in the middle of the book as well, usually when I’ve painted myself into a particularly tricky plot corner or tried to push the characters to do something that isn’t in keeping with who they are.

Other writers go through it too. All my crit partners say they feel it at least once during the growing of a new project. So at least I know it’s not just me. *g*

And every writer seems to have his or her own method for crashing through that fear and getting the job done.

For me the trick is to tell myself that I’m writing this story just for me, that no one will read this draft but me so it doesn’t matter how awful it is.

It’s a lie of course, but it usually works and frees me up enough to at least write the draft. And after all, you gotta start somewhere, right?