Following Your Fear

Last Friday I Followed my Fear. I met Todd Charron an agile and lean coach and improv guy at Lean Startup Machine in January and after that event we were at the bar and I told him about my fear which was writing a script idea I was nursing for a few weeks at the time. Well I actually did it. I wrote it, the first draft is done (although that itself is just the beginning).

It is still raw but more important than that it is a start and that is all I can ask for. It was murder cause I had never written a script at all and it was hard even figuring out what to do. I still don’t have it down but at least writing the script gave me a better idea of what it actually takes to do and gives me a lot more respect that do this regularly.

With Follow your Fear Day Todd created an event to get people to do what they fear, if only to push you over the wall that we all put up for ourselves. I procrastinated a lot because I thought of this story as my baby and I am scared that the baby is too ugly or something but I realized that getting it on paper, making real helped me to explore a new side of myself that I had never thought about before and even if it isn’t the greatest script at least I got it down on paper. That is the start at least.

So for Follow Your Fear Day Todd asked a bunch of us who came on board to talk. I was supposed to go first but wasn’t able to because I was late getting there. I had no clue what to say when I got there but had to talk about the process of why I decided to do it. I rambled on for a few minutes. It will probably be online in a bit to my detriment but oh well.

I never thought of myself as a writer, if I’m honest it is because I didn’t think I could do it. I am still a bit rough around the edges but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. This script was a battle and the idea is sound, if unrefined at this point. I need to work on the dialogue and my descriptions but it is the beginning that was won and for me that is what follow your fear day was about putting the pillars in place for what is to come, and that my friends is priceless.

Here is an embarrassing interview I did with Tom 2 weeks before the event and if my random chatting goes online I will be sure to put it up for good or ill.