My friend Kaye Draper has been participating in the Insecure Writer’s Support Group for quite some time. I’ve been meaning to as well, but I was afraid of what people would think.

*cough*

Right about now, I’m dealing with that dumbest of fears, the fear of success. I’m about to release a short story into the wild as an ebook. It’s a market I’ve not sold in before (while The Remembrance was available as an ebook, I did not market it as such), but one that I’m both excited and terrified to get into. Also, it’s been a hell of a long time since I’ve released anything. Of course I’m afraid that no one will read it, and that the ones that do will hate it. What I did not expect was to be terrified that it will take off.

What if my blog gets hammered with traffic, and then the server crashes, and then nobody can get to my site and I look like an unprofessional hack? What if I get this sudden influx of money and forget to set aside enough for taxes? What if people love it and then expect me to keep at it, or worse, get better? What if the fun of writing turns into work and then I want to stop? What if the inspiration well dries up? (That will never happen, I have more ideas than time in which to write them.) What if someone had the same idea and tries to sue me? What if my writing somehow causes a societal revolution in which millions of people are killed and I am remembered in infamy for the rest of time?

*cough*

These fears are actively trying to keep me from clicking on those publish buttons. I have to think that many writers experience these contradictory fears – don’t put your writing out there, you might fail! Don’t put your writing out there, you might succeed!

Screw you, brain. I’m putting my writing out there.