And He Thinks Writing Is Scary?

We all know how to muster courage in a scary situation. That knowledge is transferable.

I knew a fellow once who was a Marine fighter pilot, but the prospect of finishing his novel made him nervous. He finally marshalled his airplane driver gumption, wrapped up the book and sold it to a major house.

A lot of the time the things that stump us are really the easier ones. I find that if I shift myself into the easeful state of mind of earlier successful ventures then I can ride on that courage to take on the sticky challenge at hand.

From the Charleston Post and Courier, here's another writer with a paradoxical courage story, James Lynah Palmer,author of a collection of stories, "Going Coastal."

"When friend and publisher Donna Huffman asked him to publish stories in the magazine in 2003, he was wary.

'I've always had a fear of writing,' he said. Huffmann suggested he use a pseudonym to write his stories. He took her up on the offer and Stumblin' Jimmy Watermelon was born. "Going Coastal" encompasses three years of these stories. Palmer continues to write stories for the Bluffton Breeze. This is his first book...

When not writing stories, Palmer has made a business of fashioning underwater sculptures, scuba diving to find underwater materials to turn into art. He's turned sunken logs and rocks into fish carvings and carved an angry fictitious "Hugo" character into a rock underwater near Mepkin Abbey. He also finds businesses and corporations to sponsor the projects."

Added note: for some of us, finding corporate sponsors can be a project requiring monumental courage. Often we don't give ourselves credit for large accomplishments simply because they're familiar and routine. Everybody has a few heroic acts in their pockets; it's simply a matter of recognizing them.


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