Laptopping it

HY do they call it a laptop, anyway? The way I use it, the thing never stays in my lap. Sooner or later it ends up on the floor with me spread out before it, tippity-typing away. Maybe it should be called a floortop.

I find myself wanting to write, but I don't have a specific topic in mind. Since free-writing is usually blog poison as far as I'm concerned, I won't subject you to that... but definitely feeling the itch to come up with something.

OK, not quite true. I have quite a few topics in mind, as it turns out. There are all sorts of bits and pieces of story ideas on my hard drive and scattered throughout several manila folders in my house. My problem isn't coming up with ideas for stories, it's following up on those ideas and writing them through to completion. I am a lazy butt when it comes to following through. Plus, I think, at least a few of my unfinished ideas remain unfinished because I fear they're too weird and that the people who know me in person will read these stories and decide I'm crazy. I guess that's a cop-out, though. That's what a nom de plume is for.

I know I fear failure too much. But how do you push through the fear to create anyway?