I’ve watched hundreds of horror movies. I’ve read dozens of horror novels. I’ve seen at least two ghosts (the third was more of a presence that stared at me from the corner of a room for six months when I lived in a flat in the Lake District). I’ve jumped out of a plane, done caving, climbed some rather fun cliffs, even become a dad! But none of these things match my Number One Fear: Starting A Book!

I was browsing my local independent shop a few days back. Beautiful place. Beautiful people. And was then struck by how so many of those books are, in many ways, the products of a living nightmare. Don’t believe me? Try writing a book and you might get an idea.

Writing is a solitary world. We sit, we type, we sit some more, we type some more. Early mornings, late nights, caffeine, minds filled with worry that the words aren’t working, that the story’s not working, that something isn’t right, that the publisher won’t like it, that the reader won’t like it.

All that fear? It’s real. You can feel it in your fingertips, your toes, every joint in your body.

Which got me to wondering something else… We writers are really adrenaline junkies. We put ourselves through this process time and time again. We relentlessly “feel the fear and do it anyway” (a phrase nabbed from my days back at Uni when I thought I was cool and really, seriously, wasn’t).

So there you go. I’m terrified of writing. Yet I do it every day.

Best dash… I’ve more fear to face… Mwahahahahahaaaa!

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