I thought I’d do a progress report, since all of my posts this year have been about my efforts towards living fearlessly. Let’s take them one at a time, shall we?
#1 Ice Skating
Refresher: I’ve been terrified of ice skating due to a fear of injuring myself (in fact, I’ve always said, “I’d learn to ice skate but I’d probably break both ankles.”). That’s what kept me from doing anything for 37 years.
So, one day in December, I bespelled convinced the beloved to take me ice skating. I was, for the most part, excited, but a bit terrified, too. We’ve gone 3 times, and we plan on making it a year-round thing. The beloved even bought me a pair of ice skates! (We’ve been delayed due to some unavoidable health stuff, but we’re eyeballing May as a possible month to try again). I am scared every time I step out onto the rink, and while I’m getting my bearings. But once I get moving, I feel amazing. Conquering that fear was possibly the most exhilarating event of my life (well, besides marrying the beloved, self-pubbing Fey Touched, etc.). I highly recommend it. (The other thing is that I’m constantly dizzy and see double a lot of the time so it could, theoretically, be dangerous for me. But I refuse to let those things stop me from living.)
#2 Novel Revision
Refresher: I lamented my many rough drafts sitting on my hard drive not getting revised because I was terrified to screw them up worse (I never said my fears were logical…)
This one has been tough. I’ve been steadily revising Grave Touched since the end of December, and boy, until I hit 25k or so, it was unbearably slow and grit-my-teeth-suck-it-up difficult. Why? I think that although I knew it needed the work, my muse/subconscious/right brain got a case of the I-don’t-wannas and was blocking me every time I sat down to write. It got bad. My muse, in utter desperation, pinged several awesome new ideas at me, but I couldn’t do a single thing because hello, I’m supposed to be revising. I finally hit my stride around 35k or so, and was feeling awesome about it when I had to put it on the back burner for a TDP project. I fully expect to be a bit out of sorts once I get back to GT, but I also expect that it’ll go easier once I get over that particular hump. Also, I have at least one more revision planned for “soon.” (“Soon” meaning once I get things somewhat done. Could be awhile, though). So, I think I’m conquering this fear, slowly but steadily.
#3 Self-Portraits/Photography
Refresher: I love photography and I love self-portraits (I was taking selfies before they were a Thing back in the late ’90s…dang I feel old!). Due to weight gain, I feel ugly and bloated and hideous and no longer feel right about taking self-portraits. (I’m more of a fine art photographer, not a casual one, so I’d need a costume and a background and all that jazz. Meaning, I just can’t take close ups of my face!). It’s been horrible because doing that type of photography is a passion, a need inside me. So something’s been missing since my last shoot in 2009. So I resolved to start taking self-portraits again, even if I never showed them to anyone.
So that’s been going…slowly. I started taking selfies on my Kinde Fire HDX just for fun…and to get myself used to doing it again. Baby steps. Hoping to graduate to something cooler. I also had a goal of doing more photography, not just self-portraits, and I have a few photo shoots planned. I also would like to learn something called High Dynamic Range Photography. I have software, just need to take the pictures. Another digital manipulation thing is levitation, which should be fun, too. So there are things happening with this.
So, readers out there, how have I done so far? Have I conquered my fears?
(I think, honestly, that the only one not quite conquered is the self portraits. But it’s going down. This is my Year of No Fear, so all fears will be decimated. You heard it here first, folks).