INTRODUCTION

My name is Timitra and as the name of my blog states I am also an aspiring author.

The reasons for starting my blog are, it's a class assignment and  it's  also an opportunity to get me to start doing what I want to do with my life, write. You may be wondering, why I haven't been doing that all the time?

Simple I procrastinate, I put off what I can do today  for tomorrow, well when it comes to writing that is. I see this blog as a way of getting me out of my procrastination rut as I will be forced so to speak to find time to write.

I procrastinate for two reasons, one of them is time, of which I have very little of during the semester, all I do is focus on my studies. However, even when I'm on break from school I still don't write.

 The reason for that can be summed up in one word FEAR. Fear of rejection, why am I afraid of rejection? Well,writing is a personal experience, you share parts of yourself, of your very soul with your reader, so much so that what you write takes on a life of its own, it becomes your baby and to put it out there like that for others to judge, to take apart, to critique takes a hell of a lot of courage.

Until recently I did not have that courage despite the fact that I had read stories I'd written in class. But, the good news is  I DO NOW. Which is why I'm about to embark on something I've NEVER done before, that is put myself out there, really out there but we'll get to that a bit later on in the post as I want to focus on the other side of my coin of fear.

Fear of FAILURE is not to be taken lightly. It has the ability to paralyse, to stifle, to snuff the life out of a dream, like a puff of air to a candle's flame. In essence it CAN and WILL kill your dream(s) if you allow it too. I admit I've allowed it to, not exactly kill my dream as it still burns very brightly within but I've allowed it to paralyse my pursuit of it, until now.

Gone are the days where I allow fear to defer my dreams. This blog will be proof of that, it is my way of facing my fear. It will help in the pursuit of my goal which is to write a short story of between 2000-5000 words, which I will submit as my entry into the Commonwealth Short Story Competition. It will chronicle the ups and downs, highs and lows of my journey with  help from my supporting cast Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia...etc.