You don’t need me to tell you we’re living in strange times. Let me amend that. Since much of the history of the human race  has involved all matter of weirdness and difficulties, let’s say stranger than most times.

When life hands you a raw deal or heartbreak, a scary, shitshow future, or distrust in humankind, harness it. Write about it.  Writing what scares you means you’ll be revealing the inky, complex emotions and potholed messes that shape a life. It means sometimes there’s no way out–except through telling stories and making art.

Try this exercise to make use of the power of  fear. Whatever you write doesn’t need to be good or polished or publishable. But then again it could lead to a potent outpouring that could  shape a longer narrative.

Start by simply sitting and really feel your anxieties, fears, and whatever nightmare scenario is unfolding. Another trick to reach inward is to lie on your back with your knees raised, feet on the ground. And say out loud, I’m scared.  This could rattle a raw and vulnerable anguish you’ve been holding in so be prepared.

You might want to name your fears, but first comes letting them enter and send tendrils of ice and worry along your spine. Is your private movie-slash-nightmare about something that happened to you such as a betrayal or painful parting?  Lost hope or a critically ill family member?

Then again, you might feel a sweeping malaise and dread because the big picture appears so freaking grim.  Existential fears are especially powerful these days: the reality of injustice; the uncertainty of nature; and the certainty of evil. Lots to mine there.  Great storytelling explores the echoing caverns and hidden byways, and answers whether a human life matters.

Now close your eyes and conjure a few specific pictures or a short inner film that draws upon what your body is telling you, what’s roiling your nerves.  Where do  you feel fear?

My stomach feels both clutchy and shaky, my chest tight when I do the ‘I’m scared’ exercise with my eyes closed. IFear is no stranger. ‘m four and there are monsters in the shadowy closet without a door. The closet is opposite our bed, but there’s no hope since tigers under the bed.

Let the images and movies twist in your head.  Now pose your hands over your keyboard {or grab a pen} and {eyes still closed} start writing. You only need to write a few sentences with your eyes shut, but tap out enough words so that it feels different than a normal writing experience. Or you can keep writing with your eyes closed.

Some writers will want to linger amid their fears and spiking blood pressure as they keep going. Some will be focusing more on the images of their fears.

Aim for at least a page or two. You can simply jot down impressions, and your body’s jagged messages. Or you might want to create a story, staging actions. You might want to pepper the scenes with sensory details. It was deathly quiet in our 3-bedroom house when I was four. Lying there petrified while the whole world seemed to sleep. The nights pitch.

Or you could keep going and create rising action leading up to a wet-faced breakdown. A horror unleashed. Or vanquished.

Then some writers need distance to explore what pains them. If that’s you, after you conjure the frightening images and can feel tension buzzing in your veins, open your eyes and pull in some deep, calming breaths, pausing on the inhale, exhaling through your mouth. A count of 7-5-7 or something similar works well.  Do this at least three times and then start writing with an awareness that your breath is helping you keep it together,  lending calm,  leading to clarity.

We live in scary, hard times. Wave your wooden leg. As in a peg-legged pirate. The phrase means placing whatever scares or worries you most at the center of things,  like a stage or screen. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaiden’s Tale was published in 1985.  It’s a dystopian tale about a regime that opresses women to the point where fertile women exist only to breed. These handmaids live in gilded slavery and their children are taken from them soon after birth. At the time it was published the concept seemed unthinkable.

Our worst fears never truly hide; they stalk our inner shadows, slipping out at the most inappropriate time, to trip us up and to prove we’re still vulnerable. If you hold back from writing about fears, your writing might lack fire. So write what scares you. That’s where the power is.