Every time I sit down to write I get this flutter of fear. It's only small, but I never allow it to stop me from plunging in and writing. I once read a book about writing and fear. An online search will reveal the title and I'll post it here once I find it. It addressed the issue of fear and how writers can allow fear to paralyse them. I know once I did allow fear to rule me and my ability to produce words on a page or screen. But now I don't feel the fear in such a big way. It's been reduced to a mere whisper instead of the angry snarling roar I used to hear. It's difficult to face that raging emotion, but when fear speaks as soft as the end of my cat's tail as she swirls by me, well, that's pretty easy to ignore.

What quietened that untamed fear into something I could control? I really think the mornings I spent just writing and writing absolute guff in my morning pages is what did it. Once I had those three pages of rubbish out of the way I somehow felt switched on and ready for anything. Prior to reading Cameron's The Artist's Way I had been inspired by Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones, yet another book filled with utter nonsense, yet it spoke to something in me that needed release.

Goldberg gave me permission to write junk, to write about nothing, the pile of laundry, the sunlight streaming through my window in the morning, the dust gathered on the sill, the ants crawling around my dog's bowl. She showed me the beauty and simplicity of writing for the sake of it. The act of putting pen to paper with no real purpose in mind liberated me. I felt a freedom I simply did not find any other way.

It sounds crazy to think a grown woman, with children of her own, would need permission to write. I did, though. I really needed to know I could just write and have no real reason to. That I could pick up the pen and swirl it in scribbles if that's how I felt right then. All those inner restraints had held me back for so long. In unchaining myself I let out the writer within. All those critical sounds of how hopeless I was, how unimaginative, how boring, how useless, and it goes on and one, left me once I knew I could be all those things and it just didn't matter.

Of course, that's what got me going. I understood there was a place for writing better and far more interesting things, but the act of practicing is really what it's about. As soon as you learn to write and not think the sooner you can learn to hear your inner voice and what it's really trying to say. I learned I wanted to write about food, about my childhood, about my father, about my experiences, about reading and books, about my daily life. I learned I could connect with characters who are lining up to have their stories shared, and by me. I learned other people want to read my writing, too.

Once I freed myself to write whatever came to mind I found my readers, and listeners, responded in a way they never had before. People stopped me and thanked me for sharing what I'd read, for sharing a part of myself. I learned to access the parts of me that really have a story to tell. Anyway, I sat down without knowing what to write and guess what? I managed to fill the time with words. It's amazing what we can achieve if we just use a little bum glue and determination.