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was he that he would be ripped by the critics. I even know
another writer who is one of the most gifted stylists I’ve
ever run across, but who has never submitted anything
for publication for fear he’ll be rejected.
Yes, fear is real, but so is the answer.
Young Teddy Roosevelt found it. He was a frail, sick-
ly child, afraid of many things. So he stayed inside his
house a lot and read books, mainly adventure stories.
One day he was reading a novel by the English author
Frederick Marryat. In his autobiography, Roosevelt re-
cords what happened:
In this passage the captain of some small Brit-
ish man-of-war is explaining to the hero how to
acquire the quality of fearlessness. He says that at
the outset almost every man is frightened when he
goes into action, but that the course to follow is
for the man to keep such a grip on himself that he
can act just as if he was not frightened. After this
is kept up long enough it changes from pretense
to reality, and the man does in very fact become
fearless by sheer dint of practicing fearlessness
when he does not feel it.
From that day on, TR determined to live his life just
that way, and did indeed become a man known for his
boldness and vigor.
As a writer, you can live the TR way:
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