As writers we deal with fear and doubt constantly, both in our creations and in ourselves. The truth is that no one will ever care as deeply about our work as we do. And there will never be enough readers to slate our lust. We fight a constant battle between expectations and reality, constantly on the hunt for a balance that will reward us with a little happiness and keep us one step away from depression.

How do you cope with fear as a creator? How do you brush off doubt?

I’ve had a few fears the years I was writing only for me, to fulfill and discover and complete that ravenous hunger for purpose.

In the old days, those pre-publication days, my number one fear was that I’d never be ‘good enough’ since I was horrible in school. I lacked motivation, direction, inspiration. I did not care about pleasing anyone, least of all myself.

How do we get to the point where we don’t need to hear others saying we’ve arrived to know we have? Or is arriving a crock of bull?

To overcome the ‘will I ever be good enough’ took a few things. Actually selling a lot of work was a big factor, especially to picky publishers who are buried with either short or long manuscripts, and who have to pick the few that they love most. I think part of that hunger to sell to them was because I needed that affirmation since I definitely wasn’t getting it from my family. I also had to understand that question ‘will I ever be good enough’ is a stupid question, really, it’s fucking dumb. Good enough for what? Generalizations don’t give or take anything. They don’t help anything.

I can be as good as my talent and learned skills will take me and no farther, and who am I to ask for more?

I remember fearing being stuck in a box. The truth is I don’t like most genre stuff. I like genre-crossing, I like when a story has it all: horror, tenderness, love, hate, mystery, suspense, imagination, unique characters, pessimism and optimism, darkness and light.

I don’t care about genre anymore now than I did when I started, less even, really. My fear has come true, I must be put in a box because that’s how things are marketed. But I will keep writing what I want to write and as long as people are reading it I found that it doesn’t matter too much what I’m labeled, though it does matter somewhat, because there have been readers who have complained that one of my stories isn’t horror, doesn’t use all the tropes, blah the fucking blah. I don’t think those readers are my real audience and that’s fine because I’m not going to give them what they want in a story. And I’m okay with that because I’m sticking to my guns and writing my hodgepodge style.

As I started selling a lot of work in the last couple years I feared that big fear: Does it matter? It’s true that we all have our gifts, and it’s better to use them than not, but what if I never wrote another word (yeah right!) would it matter? I don’t think it’d make much difference, which is why I think it’s so important to lean toward creating for ourselves first, and we’re lucky if anybody else gets anything from it. Most of us will never touch millions of people with our work, that’s a fact. We’ll be lucky to touch 10,000. But whatever we do, whatever fears we overcome and whatever doubts we have to brush aside, we’ll touch someone if the story is honest because honesty resonates.

Where are you in your writing career? What fears do you fight daily? What doubts keep you awake or do you repeat like clockwork to your closest friends?

How do you balance expectations and reality? I think besides focusing on the craft and telling the stories that live in your heart that balance is what brings happiness. Not success, not praise. Success and praise are fleeting, and worse they’re addictive. We become black holes without the balance, we become desperate. Write for yourself, tell an honest tale, seek balance and be grateful for what your hard work has brought you.