How did I become so afraid? My manuscript is somewhere deep in my subconscious mind buried by my fear of commitment. That story that I began so many years ago hurts when I try to write it down. I don’t like stirring up old ghosts but I know it is the only way that I can truly release them. I’m scared of failure.
I have lived everyday of my life surrounded by death and violence. I have taken a natural attitude towards gunshots, HIV, and the threat of false detainment but somehow that unwritten manuscript frightens me to my core. Those many thousand words have remained trapped in my heart and they have become a burden on my soul only because I allow them to be. At some point I have to believe in my story enough to let it feel the rays of sun that are awaiting its presence here on Earth. I must somehow release the puss from the gory wounds of my life so that the youth of today may be forewarned and so that all of my peers who suffer in the same manner may be consoled knowing that they were never alone.
I run for at least three miles everyday from my past and when I am standing still I hide behind a goofy smile. I live the life of a coward standing on a bridge moments away from committing artistic suicide. Will I jump, will I continue to run, will I hide, or will I finally confront my pain and write?
What does the future hold?
YB
ghettosun 
Which is worse, the unwritten, or the written and unshopped manuscript?
The unwritten is way worse in my opinion.
My humble opinion is that you should write.
I read “The Souls of Hood Folk” and your characters are memorable. I have thought about some of them many times since reading the stories. A lot of people have good, worthwhile stories but lack the writing skills to bring their stories to life. But you have the writing skills, so something else is blocking you.
I don’t know what that might be. I read your blog and I sense a kind of avoidance as though you are writing about things that do not matter as much as what you really want to write about, and you are not saying what you really want to say. It is as though you are distracting yourself, going off on tangents, maybe just to keep writing while you avoid the story that you really want to write.
I really do not see how you could fail unless you let years go by without doing this thing that you really want to do.
You’re absolutely correct.