Fear of "The Unknown" and BPS

Hey friends :)
So I knew I wanted to post again today, and I thought to myself, "Self, what will you write about?" and I came to an interesting conclusion: I have no clue. From there, though, I started thinking about 'The Unknown" and poof, writing! Enjoy.

Let's ease into this blog post nice and gentle with a bit of college-level developmental psychology. At every age, humans feel fear. It's a primal drive designed to help us survive, but whether you're a kid during a thunderstorm or an adult in the hospital waiting room, fear is rarely a friend. Of the many phobias and anxieties that exist and are specific to each person, we all share a fear of things out of our knowledge or control: "The Unknown". Let me give some examples.

When I was five or six, I graduated kindergarten, and was preparing to go into first grade. Like every kid, I was scared of kindergarten, sure, but I figured out it was fun after all, and loved school. Which is why my mom was a little confused when I displayed anxiety over entering first grade the next year. It was the same school. Same schedule. Even some of the same classmates. Why was I afraid? When she asked, "What's scary?" I apparently replied, "I'm going into the grades." Of course, my family finds that a hilarious thing for me to fear, my class having a number was scary.
But really, what I was trying to communicate was something more sincere. I was scared of "the grades" because it was something I had never before experienced. There's not really logic to the fear of the unknown, unfortunately, but I was trying to say that I didn't know what to expect, and that scared me.

So, Mimi, you're thinking to yourself, Why do I care? How does this relate to me and my writing? Well, knowing that everyone experiences fear of the unknown might help you with Blank Page Syndrome.
What's BPS? It's the name I've given to that void of hopeless despair that fills you as your cursor blinks innocently at you on the left of your screen hen you're about to start a new writing project. You might have every plot point planned. You might have the most elaborate character sheet ever. But as soon as you sit down to actually start Chapter One... Boom, nothing. Your mind panics. What if you do it wrong? What if you don't like it? What if everyone hates it? Fear. What's in the future for your project is unknown, and it scares you. The same thing happens at the beginning of the school year, when you start a new job, when you try a different food... A new experience, no matter how much you've prepared, will probably scare you. Because you're human, and unfortunately, humans in general fear what they can't predict. After all, fortune-tellers and fantasy novels (by use of time-travel, psychics, or prophecies) exploit our ignorance of what is yet to come. Yeah, a new project can be fulfilling and healthy in the end blah blah blah, but remember when I said fear isn't logical?

What should I do about it, Mimi? Now I'm panicking over a fear I didn't even know I had. (Yeah, sorry about that.) Here's what I do: When the cursor is flashing and your mind and the page are both blank, take a deep breath. Calm, quell, or at least accept the fear. If the writing goes wrong, what's stopping you from editing it? Or deleting it altogether? The main thing is that you need to actually start. It's hard to fix something that doesn't exist, right? Go on and write the first word. First sentence. First paragraph. Hate it? Too bad, move on. Write until your unknown is no longer a mystery, and then I think you'll find that with the unknown taken care of, even with a new set of problems presented by your (extremely) rough draft, a lot of that fear is gone too. Start writing something new, and use the fear of the future to drive your writing to new emotional levels full of grammar errors, instead of a neutral feeling of cautious precision. Don't ever let fear control you, but remember, you don't have to control your fear. Sometimes, fear can be your friend, especially for writers.

As ever, the best of luck to you in your writing, and may your unknowns become knowns.
~Mimi

This has been another fabulous post on Writing with Mimi, a blog about fandoms and creative writing and other random nonsense. If you enjoyed it, please tell Mimi. If you hated it, please tell Mimi. And if you have nothing to say, well, make something up about a pie or a fez or something of equal value and tell Mimi about that. Today's Awesome Thing: Jamestown was founded in 1607, the first permanent settlement of English speakers. Thank you for reading!