DEAR FEAR, A LETTER FROM ANDREA OWEN

By Andrea Owen

Bookmobiles.

If you’re a person of a certain age in the US, you might remember these minilibraries on wheels. They could be smaller vans up to a full-size RV-type vehicle. They often had carpet just like you may have had in your elementary school classroom, with small benches inside for small people, and a smell exactly the same as any library – that wonderful smell of books and imagination.

It was there that my love of books began and set the dream in motion of becoming an author.

When I was still a child, I wrote short stories about babysitting, crafting dramatic scenes about earthquakes while the main character saves the kids she’s watching. As a teen, I wrote angst-filled poems as I experienced the emotional roller coaster of love and heartbreak with a boy whom I believed hung the moon.

As adulthood and my career moved forward, my dream of becoming an author came true. By 2013 I had landed a traditional book deal, and my first book was published. It was every bit as exciting as I thought it would be - the process of finding a literary agent, her shopping and selling my book, and signing contracts. When the book came out, I went to a bookstore and saw my book on the shelf. My little girl heart soared like when she had walked into a bookmobile, I was absolutely ecstatic.

That book did well enough for me to land a second book deal in 2016. To my surprise, that book garnered 19 foreign translations and was distributed and sold in 23 countries around the world. Although extraordinarily exciting, it was a lot of visibility, and with that, I felt tremendous fear and pressure. Outwardly, I couldn’t be happier. But, deep inside, I felt a need to hide.

A few years later, I got the idea for my third book and started the arduous process of writing another book proposal. Book proposals are complicated, gigantic documents that editors at publishing houses read and decide if they want to buy your book or not. The proposal contains the summary of your book, who the book is intended for, and what magic you’re going to conjure up to help you sell the book.

The way I usually describe writing book proposals is that it's like a school project that is enormously time-consuming, super boring, a crap-ton of work, and yet 99% of your grade is riding on it. Oh, and you fail if you don’t do it. No big deal.

My little girl self retreated behind the card catalog.

So, as a self-help author, I did an exercise that I would have given to any of my clients in my position. I would write a letter to fear, as one of my favorite authors, Elizabeth Gilbert, suggests. Instead of running from fear, writing a letter to fear is a way to face it, to acknowledge it, and to work with it.

This letter is candid and direct, because that’s my style. Here is that letter.

Dear Fear,

I’m not sure why I’m addressing you as “dear,” as you ’ re hardly dear to me.

Let me start with compassion, since you don’t necessarily deserve to be yelled at, berated, or chastised.

This book was slightly different than my first two. It was still in the same genre of self-help, but it had an edge. It was more opinionated. More in tune with what was going on culturally and politically. It felt risky. It felt vulnerable. It felt like scooping my heart out with a knife and presenting it to Very Important People in hopes that they would love it.

I dragged my feet for months writing the proposal. My agent was patient, but urged me to finish it.

The truth was I was terrified and the fear was getting in the way at every turn.

I get it. I get why you ’ re doing what you ’ re doing. You know – or at least are very certain – that if I write a BIG book, …(and by “BIG,” I mean with lots of opinions. And by “lots of opinions,” I mean opinions that millions of women and men also have the same opinions. Oh, the irony.) …there is a huge risk involved. What if people disagree with me and write mean things about me on the internet? What if I don’t know enough about some of these topics and I’m criticized for that?

But, I think the thing that scares you the most, is not bad reviews or haters…but the success of this book.

With my last book doing so well, this book has big shoes to fill. And by big shoes, I mean 100,000 copies in 16 months. A big book advance to PROVE how worthy my creativity is. Numbers have weight, and there are so many numbers to contend with. To you, Fear, big numbers equal everything good and right in my life.

There are so many What If’s and OMG’s and expectations. I understand your job is to know these backward and forward. To warn “GIRL, WATCH OUT!” at every turn, every second, and I believe your goal is to convince me to write a book that is so incredibly vanilla that it will be agreeable to everyone. Or, if you really had your wish, I wouldn’t write another book at all. We’d just leave the party with two books, blowing kisses to everyone and call it a day.

I understand that you are convinced this risk is equivalent to my possible death– playing Russian Roulette with the general public. That any failure of this book will not only result in public humiliation but will be my death. Death by my haters, or death by massive shame. Or maybe both.

Trust me, I feel all of this in my marrow. Every day as I sit down to write the proposal for this book, I hear you and feel you. I wring my hands and I worry. I make an anguished emoji face. I get digestive issues.

But, I need to tell you first that while I get you and see your job, and even respect and admire your tenacity for doing said job, I have got this.

If you remember, I used to sit in my room for hours writing stories from the age of 9. This continued well into my teens, and then for a decade or so I stopped writing because I lost myself (but that’s a letter for another day). But when I picked up writing again, it poured out of me. And for years this happened and then I wrote my first book. I actually did it, Fear, do you remember? You were there so much during that time. We wrestled, you pushed, I pushed back and in the end, I did it. And we didn’t die– in fact, it ended up being fantastic, so fantastic that I did it again. And like the good worker you are– always diligently showing up for your shift, on time, you came back that time and we made it through yet again. And that book was fantastic, too. Even more so to me because I understood so much more about the creative process, the publishing journey, about myself, and about you.

So many times I write things that I don’t remember. God is writing through me, she knows what needs to be said, and she whispers it to me. And when you ’ re yelling, it makes it hard for her to be heard. Ya, ya, I know you ’ re doing your job and I’ll get to our deal in a minute, but I need you to understand just how much I have got this.

So, we ’ re going to make a deal. You and me, Fear.

This is important. This book wants and needs to be written. There are women out there of all ages who need this clarity, stories, advice, and my sense of humor to reach the next level in their life. They have their own fear that’s putting the brakes on and listen, Fear, we can have NONE of that. These women are trying to do incredible things, live better lives, be influences on other women. And they can’t do that if you ’ re in the way and yelling so loud.

So, back to our deal. I’m not banishing you or burning you at the stake. You can stay, but if you stay, we have to enlist some boundaries. First and foremost, I am in charge. The boss. The big kahuna. If it’s any consolation, remember this is our third time at this rodeo. I am fully equipped to be in the driver's seat.

Second, since you have permission to come along, there needs to be rules around that. No blabbering, no worst-case-scenario, no comparison to my previous writing or to other authors. In other words, I need you to maybe at most whisper your worries when absolutely necessary. I promise I’ll acknowledge you.

You can’t be in charge, Fear, that’s the bottom line. I call all the shots and my voice is the loudest, the most important, and the most loving. It has to be. We may need to have future meetings once in a while and that’s fine if you need to give me all the warnings. I’ll hear you out. But, that’s it.

Oh, and thanks for keeping me safe all those other times, you know when I legitimately could have died. You’re the best for that.

Sincerely,

Andrea

Deal? Deal.

Andrea Owen is an inspirational writer, speaker, mentor and life coach. She got into life coaching when it was relatively unknown and has become a recognized leader in the self-help and coaching world. She empowers women to take control of their lives and break out of isolationism and reclaim the power to do what they want. She has successfully recorded and released over 300 episodes of her podcast and written two books (and there’s another on the way!).

https://www linkedin com/in/heyandreaowen/ https://www.facebook.com/andrea.marie.owen/