Sunday Speculations on Poetry, Fear and Death

Death will take us all 

Eventually 

Fear is a 

Form of 

Death 

Fear stops the poet from writing. Fear kills the muse. Fear is not something a poet or a writer can afford to remain in the mind. This thought has haunted my mind for the past several days. I have been writing poetry, short stories, and essays for some time and posting them on a writers website. I even do a fantasy newsletter on that website, but that is as far as I have gone. I have not attempted to submit anything in several years. Last week I realized why. 

A few weeks ago, I subscribed to Poets & Writers magazine. On Friday, April 22, I received the May/June issue. I immediately began looking through it to determine which article I wanted to read first. I came across some websites for submissions and I immediately began feeling stressed, nervous and fearful. I realized then that the only thing that has been stopping me from submitting my work is fear. 

I know that I have issues with some  technical aspects of writing, which can be dealt with by consulting grammar websites or books. I also have a bad habit of attempting to edit a story in a document instead of printing a copy off to edit. This is a habit that I can break by printing a copy off as soon as I finish writing. When I edit online, I miss obvious typos. All right, typos are as obvious when looking at a computer monitor as they are on a hard copy. The typos I usually encounter concern words that are spelled right but are not the words I intended to type.