Fear Doesn’t Get the Microphone

The fake muse is just panic in a housecoat, after all.

Now available: Poems to be Afraid Of by Pixie Bruner

Yesterday, I gave a presentation for Reedsy. When I first agreed to do it, I felt excited. I love talking to writers. I love helping people understand what editors are actually looking for, what makes a manuscript easier to accept, and how writers can revise with more confidence instead of more shame.

Then I found out there were over 3,000 signups. That was when the imposter shadow stepped into the room with me, whispering, Are you sure you’re the person who should be doing this?

I was still fine, technically. Nervous, but fine.

Most people won’t actually show up, I told myself.

Then, during the presentation, I glanced at the attendee list.

More than 500 people were there at that moment, listening live. Five hundred-plus writers had chosen to spend that hour listening to me talk about manuscripts, each with their own questions, hopes, nerves, and expectations.

I had five hundred chances to be helpful. Or, if I let the fake muse take over, five hundred-plus chances to fail.

And then, because the universe has a sense of humor, there was a tech fail. I was booted out in the middle of my own presentation. Nothing like disappearing from a live event to make your imposter shadow wake up.

I got back in. I continued. I found my place again. Then it happened a second time. That was the moment the fake muse leaned in close with advice.

Honey, just pretend you can’t get back in. They’ll just think your internet is down.

At that moment, it sounded like a really good idea.

There it was: the old story. Fear means stop. Fear means danger. Fear means I have wandered too far out of my depth and should retreat before everyone notices.

That story has followed me into almost every new thing I have ever done. Every book, every stage, every submission, every moment when the room got bigger than I expected. Creative fear always shows up at the threshold.

For a long time, I thought fear was trying to stop me because it knew something I didn’t. Now I understand fear differently.

Fear isn’t necessarily trying to harm us. It’s trying to protect us.

It is just wildly overprotective.

Fear is the grandparent of the nervous system, standing at the door with three extra sweaters, a flashlight, expired cough drops, and a handwritten list of every possible thing that could go wrong.

Fear says, Don’t touch the hot stove.

Fear says, Don’t ignore the red flag.

Fear says, Don’t walk into the dark alley with the guy carrying a shovel and humming murder ballads.

Helpful, honestly. Thank you, fear.

But sometimes it’s really not helpful.

Fear can also appear right before we are ready to spread our wings. It shows up between the aha and the now-what. It pops up right when we stop imagining the work and start letting it meet the world.

That is where the fake muse waits, or maybe that is where it reveals herself.

Maybe it was never a sleek villain in the corner after all. Maybe the fake muse is fear in a housecoat, trying to smother us in sweaters every time we step into sunlight.

It means well. Sort of.

It remembers every time we were embarrassed, rejected, ignored, misunderstood, or made to feel foolish. It has kept receipts and laminated them. It would very much like us to stay inside where nothing bad can happen to us.

The trouble is, nothing good happens to us there either.

No failure, maybe, but no expansion either.

No rejection, maybe, but no connection.

No embarrassment, maybe, but no growth.

Fear wraps us in bubble wrap and calls it love. The fake muse pulls the tape tighter and calls it wisdom. That was what I witnessed yesterday.

The fake muse wanted to make the room about my worth, my authority, my performance, and my possible humiliation. She wanted me to forget the writers who had shown up hoping to learn something useful. She wanted me to confuse visibility with danger.

I had a choice then.

I could feed the panic, or I could return to the work. I had to remember I wasn’t there to prove I deserved to be there. I was there to share what I knew. The presentation was not actually about me. It was about the writers, their manuscripts, their questions, and the stories they were trying to bring into the world. That was my shaky logic in a panicked moment, but it was enough.

I came back in. I picked up where I left off and kept going. I put my over-protective muse in its place.

It is rarely a grand, heroic act. There is no permanent banishment of fear, no perfect triumph where we never doubt ourselves again. It is the practice of returning, imperfectly. I didn’t refuse the feeling of fear. I refused the feeding of it.

That distinction matters.

Fear will always be with us. It has a purpose. It keeps us from touching hot stoves, ignoring red flags, and wandering into dark alleys allegedly full of kittens.

We don’t need to vanquish fear. We just need to stop letting it run the meeting.

Fear can sit in the back, muttering into its little paper cup of bad coffee and scribbling a running list of every possible disaster. Fear doesn’t get the microphone. It doesn’t get to drive, and it doesn’t get to decide whether the work is worthy of being done.

The ritual of refusal.

First, we name the fear.

Yesterday, my fear began with the numbers. Over 3,000 signups. 3,200, to be exact. Then five hundred-plus people live. Then tech fail number one. Then tech fail number two.

Then the old voice saying, You are embarrassing yourself in front of hundreds of people. Once I named it, the fear got smaller. Not gone, just smaller.

Fear was trying to protect me from humiliation. It warned me that I might make a mistake and embarrass myself. It might have been right. I know we say we might die of embarrassment, but has it ever proven fatal?

For me, not yet.

Then, we refuse to be smothered.

This is the part where we remove fear’s power. We don’t need to vanquish it or pretend we don’t see it. We remove fear’s power by recognizing it for what it is: an overprotective grandparent trying to dress us for a blizzard when we are only trying to get the mail.

We can say, Thank you for trying to protect me. Then we can take off six of the sweaters.

Yesterday, I had to refuse to turn five hundred people and a double tech fail into an insurmountable obstacle. I had to refuse to treat a tech fail as a prophecy. I had to refuse to make fear the center of the room.

It wasn’t dramatic or elegant. I stumbled around trying to remember where I was, and then I continued. That was enough.

Finally, we return to the work.

This is the part that matters most. Refusal is not the destination. Refusal only clears the path so we can continue.

The true danger is usually smaller and less dramatic than the fake muse wants us to believe. A little embarrassment is survivable. We can’t write our epic life story without spilling some ink.

Yesterday, I did not defeat my fake muse forever. I did something more useful.

I recognized her.
I refused to let her lead.
I returned to the work.

Then I brought the whole messy experience back here and transmuted it into this post.

That is the ritual.

The goal is not to kill fear. The goal is to stop letting fear dress us for a blizzard every time we step into the sunlight.

What kind of housecoat does your fake muse wear?

🔥 · Authortunities Press just released Poems to be Afraid Of by Pixie Bruner.

📅 · The Authortunities Calendar is updated with fresh, new ‘always open’ listings.

😅 · Watch Common Manuscript Mistakes and How to Fix Them | Reedsy Live.

🎙️· This week on Reading Space & Time, we will be sharing more stories and poems from the July issue, namely “The Pleasure Models” by Pixie Bruner, “A Supremacist Sonnet” by Gordon Linzner, “The Artist” by L. Marie Wood, “The Violinist” by Grace R. Reynolds, and “Man’s Best Friend Mourns” by Jordan Francis.