Boredom = fear of failure
I've come up against a wall today. Or rather, an upswell of boredom has overtaken me. I've just started the first chapter of the fiction section, and have been reading about different approaches to creating characters. Each time, I come to an exercise, I 'just don't fancy it'. I took myself out to Queen's Lane cafe hoping that richer stimuli than the fire and the motionless cat would knock some enthusiasm into me. But no, I just felt mildy bored, with a cup of tea I didn't fancy and had to pay for. Insight came when my musings organised themselves into work thoughts. I'm sure that as they did, I must have visibly slumped in my chair: work makes me comatose with boredom quite frequently at the moment. That's when I got it: I feel bored when I'm scared of failing at something! I turned it round in my mind a bit to work out if it's right, and it just felt more convincing.
I've found plundering memories and sensual detail easy: I've even had some good feedback, so it's started to feel safe and the temptation is just to go on doing it, rather than search for characters less related to my experience.
After that, I just did the next couple of exercises. I don't think I did them particularly well, but that's the point. I have to be much, much better at risking 'failure', and seeing far fewer of the possible outcomes as failure in the first place.
I've found plundering memories and sensual detail easy: I've even had some good feedback, so it's started to feel safe and the temptation is just to go on doing it, rather than search for characters less related to my experience.
After that, I just did the next couple of exercises. I don't think I did them particularly well, but that's the point. I have to be much, much better at risking 'failure', and seeing far fewer of the possible outcomes as failure in the first place.
posted by Liz at 7:45 AM
2 Comments:
What a valuable insight this is. I think I know what you mean. For me, I experience lethargy, and I'm sure it is a similar thing i.e. fear of timewasting, doing something badly.
Well done for just doing it - I think that is exactly what we need to do. Action = success (eventually!)
It's a horrible feeling isn't it? You want to be doing something, but suddenly, even picking up the pen feels like too much of an effort.
The upshot of today's insight though, is that I made some progress with a young teenage character I'm trying to develop for a story. I'm pretty sure he often looks like he isn't 'bothered' but actually he's just afraid of risking trying!
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