art and fear

book that leapt off the shelf at me in my local bookshop yesterday. I've been in a 48-hour funk of icy terror.

Not enough time, not enough resources, I don't have the training or experience or level of craft to pull this off, it's going to be a gigantic disaster.......

Here's what David Bayles and Tod Orland say:

After all, in making art you bring your highest skills to bear upon the materials and ideas you most care about. Art is a high calling - fears are coincidental.

....disguising themselves variously as laziness, resistance to deadlines, irritation with materials or surroundings, distraction over the achievements of others - indeed as anything that keeps you from giving your work your best shot.

I was like, bingo, with each item on the list.
It nailed so precisely each factor that kicks in when I'm faced with the next step, and the next.

And then:

....those who challenge their fears, continue. Those who don't, quit.

I have a whole repertoire of quitting fantasies that I run when I wake up in the grip of panic at 2am. But I'm still doing the work. Imperfectly.