If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
We writers have issues. The blank page or computer screen is like a mirror reflecting back to us every insecurity we can possibly feel, including the following:
1. Fatigue and laziness. Writing is often the last thing we have time for after a long day of work or parenting or school, thus we’re often tired when we begin to write. We often mistake this as laziness, or we just want to be lazy and watch television or go out with friends. Neither of those are wrong, but if you find that you are apprehensive about writing because you are tired or want to just be lazy, you’re facing a strong sense of insecurity.
2. Procrastination. This is just really easy to do with regard to our writing. We can procrastinate like no one else. Writing takes the kind of brain muscles that can shrink down practically faster than they get built up. So, procrastination is a major worry.
3. Apprehension about writing skill. We all wonder if our writing is up to par. I say the only way to find out is to just write. It’s much easier to fix writing that’s down on the page. I’m much worse about organizing my thoughts than my words on the page.
4. Apprehension about writing flow. We always worry we’ll run out of things to write or we’ll go off on a tangent and write about things that make no sense to anyone but ourselves. I’m there every single day.
5. Impatience. We’re cursed to live in such an instant society (Allison Winn Scotch writes today about going without a cell phone for a few days while she waited to receive her replacement iPhone.) It’s a lesson to learn to slow down and just write for the heck of writing, not for publication or for people to think we’re amazing.
6. Perfectionism. Ah, perfectionism. My personal Dr. Jekyll. I swear when I start sweating over writing perfectly, I turn into such an odd person.
7. Writing rules (including grammar). A lot of writers struggle with writing their amazing stories because they worry that they don’t know the rules of grammar. This is easily remedied by looking back over the work and editing it using a helpful grammar guide (I recommend Gregg’s Reference Manual; clear to understand and what we call in my industry “our best-kept secret guide.”) Other writers don’t know about plot or how to create characters. All this can be learned.
So, how does a writer deal with these worries?
It seems like a lot of worry. Why do we continue to attempt this practice? Why continue?
Because we love it. Because we can’t not continue to do it.
How do we deal with these worries?
We write. Every day at the same time, in the same place, on the same story or on different stories. We make it a habit and we do it in spite of all the worry and insecurities.
And then we win. Because publication is not the final goal most of the time. It’s a side show. It’s the fact that a writer wrote something that matters.
Now go. Write.
