Me, fiction writing, and The Dream
Here's the thing about me and that novel. It's a dream. And I'm afraid that I'm going to be a really crappy novelist, or even if I'm not, that I won't be able to find an audience. (I don't need to make a living or be famous, but if nobody wants to read my work, there's not a lot of reason to write.)
If I never write that novel, I keep the dream alive. I never realize the dream, but I never have to kill it by discovering that I can't write fiction. I know I'm a risk-avoider, and I have to make a conscious decision to take risks that I am unreasonably afraid of. Apparently the short-term risk of finding out I can't tell a story on paper weighs more heavily in my mind than the risk of never even trying. Not trying is something I can do today, with the comforting belief that I'll try tomorrow. Today is always yesterday's tomorrow.
So this is me, making a conscious decision to take that risk and either see the dream bear fruit, or finally prune it and move on to something else.