Helen Lacey | A Starting Point

I was at my day job the other week and got talking to someone about dreams. And goals. He asked me what I did outside my day job and when I told him I was a romance author he quickly started asking me questions—how long had I been writing? Was it hard to get published? How did it feel now I was published?

This gentleman was now retired but had worked in customer service all his life and he said very quietly that it was never his dream job. I asked him what was and he stilled for a moment, tilted his head and said, “I would have liked to make furniture.” He said he'd loved carpentry since he was a boy. He said he loved spending time in his workshop, but then admitted that when he started crafting a piece he never finished it. He said his workshop was cluttered with half made tables and chairs, hall stands and a carved four poster bed. I asked him why he didn’t finish his pieces and he couldn’t tell me. Which of course made me curious and I dug a little deeper and before I knew it we were having a deep conversation about fear of failure.

As an author I’ve experienced this countless times. Fear of rejection and failure can be polarizing. It can halt creativity and hound you like a great dark shadow. It can follow you in work and in your personal life. It can make you hostage to a job you hate, or linger in a relationship that’s never going to make you happy.

But one thing I discovered about fear while I was trying to get published…it’s merely a starting point.

Many years ago I was privileged enough to hear a motivational speaker by the name of Paul Hanna speak. He was on stage for over an hour and during that time he said something that resonated so strongly with me that I keep it with me everywhere—on my computer, on my fridge, on my phone, in my handbag….

Think about what you want, and not what you don’t want.

The writer in me cringes at the double negative…but the meaning of Mr Hanna’s words will stay with me always. So, I mentioned this to the gentleman who wanted to make furniture and he looked at me and smiled. “You know,” he said, “I think that’s where I am going wrong.”

He’d found his starting point.

Last Monday he came back into the store where I work and told me he’d finished a small coffee table and had put it up for sale on a local online shopping site and it had sold within half an hour. He was grinning from ear to ear. This gentleman is in his eighties and seeing his enthusiasm was inspiring. It made me want to get home and dive into my current book.

Think about what you want… it’s just a place to start.

Happy Reading!