Creating your own anxiety, rather than passion

Do you ever create your own anxiety by jumping ahead of yourself?  Yeah, me too.  I finished off the last few questions in Fierce on the Page. The last question is "What do I want to discover about myself as a writer or about writing in general this year?

I don't know yet.  My goal right now is to write, fill my creative well, and post on my blog every day.  I'd like to come up with content that entertains, amuses, teaches others.  Maybe have folks learn from my experience.  Back the truck up. Am I ready?   I haven't been thinking of anyone else but myself at the moment. I put in a lot of time and effort the past couple years worrying about  and helping other folks with their writing.   Am I ready to write for an audience?  I can feel anxiety creeping in and I'm not exactly sure why.

Some times you have to be selfish.   I'm taking this time to write for me, to find my passion again. Writing is a discovery process. I'm discovering myself again and by freeing up my thoughts and ideas and meandering on the page, I'm working on freeing  my characters again. I like imagining what my characters are thinking about or doing.  I want to learn their complete story.  And to do that, I had to learn how to tell my complete story.  I think I've made some progress in that direction, but I still have much to learn.  Plus I think it's time to let my characters loose and see where they take us.

I just copied this quote by Roald Dahl which I probably should tape to the side of my computer.

"If you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it at full speed ahead.  Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is not good.  Hot is no good either.  White hot and passionate is the only thing to be."