Well, another day sick at home, though I’m definitely on the mend. I cut back a bit on medicine, and don’t need a cough drop constantly in my mouth. Coughing much less, sinus drainage less. Back to work on Monday.

Which brings me to my last excuse in the fear area: fear of committment.

Right now, I’m playing with Documenting America. I get on to it hot and heavy for a week, and write three or four columns, gaging the time it take for each including reading, research, writing, editing, and finishing. I prove that in a mere three or four hours of concentrated work I can write one of these columns. That I could do every week. And, if that was the only thing needed for the column, that would be a commitment I would be willing to make. That’s what it would be if I wrote the column for a newspaper, one newspaper.

However, for self-syndication, I would also have marketing research, actual marketing, sending of the columns, billing and followin-up on billing, and organizing the whole thing. What would the time commitment be? What if I had the column in 5 newspapers? That wouldn’t be too bad, but what about 50? If I were so successful as to appear in 50 newspapers, what would the time commitment be, and could I handle it? If the column itself takes four hours a week, I suspect the marketing and business end of the project would require about that much, certainly if it appears in more than a handful of newspapers.

As I talk through this, the problem with commitment is more fear of what I don’t know–exactly what the time commitment will be. Fear of commitment, or fear of the unknown? I hope soon I will face them.

Still sick; still stayed at home today. Thought I would go to work, but got up at 7:00 AM to a huge coughing spell, deep and painful. So I crawled back in bed and slept till 10, and got up to a leisurely day. Did a little reading, but mainly slept and slept, or at least rested. I think I’ll be back to work tomorrow.

Now to the next excuse I’ve experienced: fear of error. This came to me when I was writing a Documenting America column on a document that dealt with “common law”. I had no idea what that was. An hour of research both on-line and in books I had at hand gave me the basics–at least enough to write the column and make the points I wanted to. Four hours total, and I had a column. Yet, a nagging thought kept coming back to me: What if my research is not sufficient, and I’ve made an error. It would kill my credibility, and would kill the column. I thought that through as I wrote the column, and tried to structure what I wrote to avoid error, to indicate the limit of my knowledge. Still, the nagging thought remained.

The writer’s need to research his subject, and write what is correct and verifiable, is huge. This is true for fiction, non-fiction, magazines, newspapters. Make a mistake on a fact and you’re toast. Worse than that, though, I think, would be a mistake in an opinion, or in interpreting a fact. You might say it would be impossible to make a mistake of interpretation or opinion, but I think it is possible.

I had more I wanted to write about this, but the long day, even with the rest I had, is making my head go fuzzy. I’ll edit this tomorrow and add the rest.

I’m out sick today, not even trying to get in a couple of hours. The way I felt this morning I was pretty sure the worst had not yet come. But I’ve had a restful day, taking my over-the-counter medication, and now am feeling much better. If things continue as is, I should be able to work tomorrow. Today I haven’t tried to write anything.

The next excuse I sometimes use is fear of success. What would happen if my column, my novels, my ideas for non-fiction books, should turn out to be good ideas, and my writing turn out to be good writing, and all these things be fantastically successful? What would change in my life as a result, and am I ready for that? Some extra money would be nice, and there is no need to fear “papazzi”-type fame, for no writer gets that, not even J.K. Rowling. Success that leads to a change of career is also pretty unlikely, and shouldn’t be something to fear.

I sometimes think this is my biggest hindrance. Then I tell myself it’s just wishful thinking. The level of success that would have a major change in my life is so far fetched as to be not attainable. So fear of success should not be a factor. Still, those dreams are hard to drive out of my mind, and the dreams then lead to that fear–of success.

I don’t know how to overcome that, other than to keep trying. Take one day at a time. Plan out a writing “career” and work the plan. Yet I’ve had these plans since June 2006. Why have I not acted on the plan? Fear of success?

Tonight I have an excuse for not doing anything on my writing: my third cold of this winter season. I came home early from work yesterday with it, and would have stayed out today except for a few things I had to get done. So I went in and did those things, then came home about 1 PM. My head is full of congestion, my chest full of coughing, various parts are hurting, and my thinking is fuzzy. Writing is impossible, so we watched a DVD and migrated to the computer for games.

But even when I don’t have this excuse, I still put off writing, especially following through on Documenting America, and the marketing needed for it. Why is this? Is it fear, and if so what kind of fear. I think I’ll take a few days to work through issues of fear. Maybe this will help me to overcome those fears.

The first, of course, is fear of failure. I’m not sure this is my problem, but maybe it is. If I send out 40 query letters, and get all rejections, how will I feel? But this is a stupid kind of fear. All that would show is that the column is less viable than I hoped, or not of interest to as wide an audience as I thought. Or it could mean my marketing approach is not right. Or it could mean I need to cast a wider marketing net. Or it could mean I should begin the column as a local newspaper column, not as self-syndicated. But the fact is failure should be no problem. It would mean I either hone the concept into something more marketable, or concentrate on other types of writing. Either way, failure with Documenting America is not an end, merely a transisiton.

Fear of failure? I don’t really think that’s my problem.

I like the way National Treasure handled back story. This has implications for me, as a writer of fiction, for the movie is really an illustrated novel. In fact, it probably was a novel before it was a movie.

The prologue of young Ben Gates learning about the treasure and how his family became involved with it is essential to understanding the story. It did not have be a prologue, obviously, but I think the prologue works better, rather than working this in as remembrances by Ben during the story. In just a couple of minutes, the stage is set for the rest of the story, including the estangement of Ben and his dad. Very well done, IMHO.

The movie then cuts to the scene in the Arctic, many years later, with Ben and companions on the quest for the Charlotte. No information is given as to how Ben learned: that Charlotte was a ship, not a person; which Charlotte among other ships; learning its itinerary; and figuring out its final resting place. All this is for the viewer to imagine. Even during the balance of the movie, almost no hints are given about the missing years. The only ones I can think of are when the FBI folks are digging into his background. So we don’t know what Ben did to get to the Arctic.

But, we don’t really need to know. An intelligent viewer can figure out in broad concepts what he did. He spent his entire life after the attic scene looking for the treasure. He obtained education in fields that helped his search. He dug around archives for a person named Charlotte who was connected with Charles Carroll or other signers of the Declaration of Independence. He figured out that Charlotte in the clue was a ship, not a woman. Etc. Etc. He traces the ship to an Artic voyage of no return, and somehow figures out where the ship ended its fateful last voyage. All of this comes to the viewer in an instant, in the cut from the attic to the Arctic. Well done.

Also well done is the lack of back story about the relationships: Gates with Ian, Gates with Riley, and others. The story is not harmed by lack of knowledge about these, even with only limited back story supplied during the movie (poker buddies, windowless cubicle). Sufficient for the viewer’s enjoyment is that these people did meet, form relationships, and start working together. The specifics are not important.

May my handling of back story in the fiction I write be as good as in this movie.