Insecure Writer's Group - February

Alex's awesome co-hosts for February are:
Sheena-kay Graham, Julie Musil, Jamie Ayres, 
and Mike Swift!   
 Please stop by their blogs and say thank you.

Today I listened to a really inspiring video podcast which really helped me identify this month's topic - fear of rejection. 

I've been working hard on getting my second novel ready to be released, and this is even scarier than last year when Shadow Embraced was released into the world. I think it's scarier for me because this novel is one that is really close to my interests, but also one outside my comfort area (since it's situated in a foreign country), and now I have all those nagging thoughts rolling around my head - will people like it? will people want to read it? what will they say about it? is it too different that they won't like it??? But I guess everyone has those thoughts - or similar thoughts - when handing over something they have worked hard on to the public for review.

In this podcast, the speaker says what it takes to keep personal expression, no matter what anyone says, or the weird reactions you get because people don't understand (or like) what you wear/say/write is to ask what you really want (do you want to write for fame & money... perhaps that's not exactly the right motive to be writing for, or do you just write because you love writing and need to write?), and ask whether you should care about what people say. Yes, it's good to accept some of the feedback that you receive from your writing, but let's face it, not everyone is going to be a fan of your work, and negative reviews are inevitable, but so are the good.

I know the fear of rejection is a major part of writing, but one thing I know is true... if you don't put your work out there, if no one gets the chance to read it, you will never know whether anyone will like it. And yes, there will be people out there that will like your work.

So, one thing I can say about rejection is to learn from it. If the negative review offers any constructive criticism, any suggestions or feedback as to what they would have liked to see improve, then you can work on improving that in your next work. If the negative review offers nothing but harsh comments, then just push it under the rug, and move on. There's no point lingering on negativity when you have something else you can be writing.

What's your insecurity for this month?

For a last piece of inspiration, here's the podcast I found so inspiring :D

What do you fear?

Fear. Nearly everyone has some sort of fear, whether it's spiders, dark, or even something simple such as fear of failure. I'm a weird one. I love spiders, snakes, dark and creepy places... I blame my cousins for taking me on thrill rides and haunted houses at carnivals when I was no older than 6... but change, I can handle change, but something about doing something so out of my comfort zone scares me. I like to know what to expect and what I'm doing, but I don't let that stop me from moving forward.

When writing horror, I like to explore the different fears, trying to create the right sense of emotion and fright in every character and scene. So, today I thought I'd list a few of the familiar, interesting and weird phobias that people can have.

• Achluophobia- Fear of darkness.
• Algophobia- Fear of pain.
• Astrophobia- Fear of stars or celestial space.
• Asymmetriphobia- Fear of asymmetrical things.  
• Atelophobia- Fear of imperfection.
• Bibliophobia- Fear of books. - Something I'm definitely not!
• Brontophobia- Fear of thunder and lightning.
• Cacophobia- Fear of ugliness.
• Coulrophobia- Fear of clowns.
• Didaskaleinophobia- Fear of going to school.
• Eisoptrophobia- Fear of mirrors or of seeing oneself in a mirror.
• Ephebiphobia- Fear of teenagers.
• Glossophobia- Fear of speaking in public or of trying to speak.
• Gnosiophobia- Fear of knowledge.
• Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia- Fear of long words.
• Mnemophobia- Fear of memories.
• Mythophobia- Fear of myths or stories or false statements.
• Necrophobia- Fear of death or dead things.
• Pentheraphobia- Fear of mother-in-law
• Phasmophobia- Fear of ghosts.
• Sciaphobia- Fear of shadows.
• Scriptophobia- Fear of writing in public.
• Sophophobia- Fear of learning.
• Verbophobia- Fear of words

This is only some of the phobias that were listed. Check out  Phobia List for even more. In my current YA horror, I'm actually using the simple fear of ghosts and the dark, mixed with the fear of memories (mnemophobia) because my character has amnesia. 

So, what are you scared of?