Starting a New Project
There’s something so exciting about beginning work on a new project. A new story always starts with a grain of an idea. It could be a character, like… a hardened warrior sitting in a tavern drinking mead. Or it could be a premise, like… what if a woman traveled through a time portal and ended up inhabiting the body of an ancient Egyptian queen?
Whatever spurs the concept, at this stage, there are no limitations placed on what this book could become. The story has the potential to become anything at all. All this freedom is a double-edged sword, though. On one hand, there is so much potential, it’s easy to get excited about the inevitable brainstorming exercises and creative tasks that go along with starting a new story. On the other hand, this is about the same time that the first niggling of doubt starts to set in.
“Can I pull this off?”
“But I don’t know anything about giant lizards / Peru / the way to kill someone using chlorinated water and a plastic spork.”
“What makes me think I can write, anyway?”
When I hit the last question, I know I need to take a deep breath and a step back. Because this is the fun part of the process. It’s pure play. Self doubt has no place here.
Nor is self doubt welcome when I finally start writing the first draft. Or when I edit. Or when I send the book into the world. Can I banish it altogether? No. If I could, I’d probably write and submit a whole lot more. But I can take it one day at a time, one story idea at a time… and see what happens.
(image by Pixeldiva)
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