So yesterday I was thinking about an upcoming piece I’ll be writing for LitReactor and chuckled at the amount of reactions I’ll surely get. You see, I’ve been doing the columnist thing for almost a decade. It all started back home with a monthly political column. By the time I stopped writing it in early 2016, I’d received four death threats. In any case, I tweeted this: “Everyone who’s gotten angry at one of my columns should hear the stuff I don’t even bother to pitch.” The result was almost immediate; a bunch of authors said they wanted to read it. I’m all about making my friends happy, so here we are. Thank the writing deities that we have crazy, brave venues like CLASH. Let’s get started, shall we? Here are ten types of authors who can go fuck themselves (God I’m good at making friends!):

1. Authors who hate…

Let me light the way

Guiding your inner journey

Through the darker times

Daily Haiku Challenge ~ Day 267/365

Photo and Haiku ©Dorinda Duclos All Rights Reserved

Perhaps you’re familiar with the sensation. You sit down to write, your story a brilliant movie playing in your head, but the blank page in front of you sends a sickening throb of fear through your chest.

What if the words come out wrong?

What if you can’t make the story on paper as glorious as the one in your head?

What if you fail?

And so you sit, paralyzed by fear. You check email. You post on Instagram. You decide your toilet really does need to be cleaned right. this. second.

You do anything but write.

Fear can be useful. It can motivate us to work hard. To revise and edit and get a second opinion before revising once more. It can drive us to the limits of our craft in a mad effort to do better on this story than we’ve ever done before.

But fear can also…