Do yourself a favor and indulge in the latest installment of Searchlights & Signal Flares at Tiny Lights .This one is themed, "What Scares You the Most about Writing?"

Here's a teaser from Christine Falcone:

What scares me the most about writing is getting too close to the edge, revealing too much about myself, allowing the world to see who I really am. It's the same feeling I get around heavy machinery or power tools. Just standing next to a skill saw, or a running lawnmower with its whirling blades is enough to make me pale. When I'm really writing the truth, writing what's real, I have the sensation that I'm walking on the edge of a razorblade. It's dangerous. It's exhilarating. And there's usually a little bit of blood involved. It's the way the words flow out of me before I can stop them, seize them and take them back. It's a reckless sort of abandon that leaves me chasing after myself, after my characters sometimes, wondering: what was I thinking revealing THAT!?

But isn't that part of being a writer? Revealing everything, tunneling into every dark crevice, every hidden cavity looking for gold? Throwing the doors to our heart open like the shutters of some provincial inn and asking the world, no, daring the world to look inside, to come on in? Writing is a kind of invitation to readers to stop, look and listen to me. And having that kind of attention, that measure of an audience who might judge, misunderstand, ridicule or even contradict what I have to say scares the hell out of me. Somehow the idea of writing isn't as scary if I think it's just for myself. But then where's the risk? It's a bit like walking a tightrope two inches off the ground. No, the real danger in being a writer is letting go of your writing, giving it over to the world to do with it, make with it what it will. And that letting go is quite possibly the thing that scares me more than anything else.


Searchlights columnist Christine Falcone's fiction, nonfiction and poetry have appeared in various print and online publications. Her work has also aired locally on public radio and nationally on public television. She is currently working on her first novel entitled, This Is What I Know.