Creativity guru Eric Maisel has written about "the anxiety of choosing." He was referring to the fact that when we are being creative and producing something, we have to make lots of decisions.
In writing, this includes choosing the protagonist through whom we will tell the story, choosing the opening scene, the various conflicts, and how to resolve the story.
Choosing is stressful because each time we make a choice we are leaving behind several other options. We begin to wonder whether we've made the right choice.
What if the crime story we're writing about how a detective solves a murder would have been fresher if we'd made the victim's sister the protagonist?
What if we'd had it take place in a different setting?
These kinds of fears--often unconscious--sometimes lead to writer's block, or to abandoning one project and going to another one where the choices seem clearer, at least at the start.
In my opinion, there are three things to remember that can relieve the anxiety:
1. These choices don't have to be permanent. Do commit to the ones that seem right and follow them through all the way. Don't jump back and forth. But do recognise that if, when you are done and have given it your best shot at a strong first draft, you turn out to have chosen unwisely you can still go back and make changes or adjustments.
2. Often the choice is not as important as how you execute that choice. In other words, it's about how well you write whichever version of the story you choose. Both versions of the crime story (detective's or sister's viewpoint) have the potential to be good.
3. This anxiety will calm down once you get more deeply into the process. Recognize it for what it is--a version of first-date jitters. Go past it and you may find yourself in a beautiful relationship!
(You can get lots of strategies for staying focused, in my book, "Focus: use the power of targeted thinking to get more done.")
