I want to be a published author. I want to be a writer as a paid job and a lifelong career. I love to write. I love to play with words and grammar and sound.

But I’m terrified. I’m terrified of being so awful as to bring ridicule to myself and any who bear the name Woodings. My literary crapness will echo through time like a death knell to all of my dignity and self-respect.

And, as you can imagine, this intense and magnified fear stops me dead in my tracks. I have eaten a heroic amount of sugar and I have played an epic amount of Warcraft. All in a completely successful attempt to avoid writing.

But the problem is, under the sugar and Warcraft, is an intense desire to have a career as a writer. So I have decided to Valiantly Suck. Maybe I’ll suck, maybe I won’t. But, even carrying the fear and possibility of being a horrible writer, I have decided to proceed anyway. Because the only other choice is to not write at all, and that choice is filled with sadness and regret.

Now to just not let the fear destroy the fun….