What are you afraid of? 10 common writing fears
Fear robs us of our creativity, our dreams and our potential. Here are 10 common fears most writers face - and a small step you can take to overcome them.
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Since Halloween is a spooky, scary time, I thought we’d take a closer look at fear this week. But not those fun seasonal scares: the ones that stay with us year round and hold us back from reaching our potential.
“Is there something you've always wanted to do but were afraid you weren't good at? Make a plan to do it.” — Carol Dweck
As writers, our fears often come in various flavours of ‘I’m not good enough’. In her book Mindset, Carol Dweck says: “Is there something you've always wanted to do but were afraid you weren't good at? Make a plan to do it.”
Because doing — rather than avoiding — is how we grow.
What are you afraid of? 10 common writing fears
The first step to overcoming your fears is to name them. So what are you afraid of? Common fears faced by writers include the following:
Fear of failure. This is a big one. What if you can’t do it? What if you’re no good? What if you don’t get an agent or a publishing deal? What if your book doesn’t sell? What if no one reads it? What if no one likes it? What if the critics hate it? What if, what if… If you have a growth mindset, you’ll fear failure less — because you’ll see it as part of the process. Get comfortable with failure. It’s how we learn and grow.
Fear of success. Also a Thing. Your life, work and relationships will change if your book is a hit. And change is scary. What if you can’t meet people’s expectations and follow up with something as good? What if the pressure to deliver your next book — quickly — is too much? What about media attention? Nice problems to have. But still potentially quite scary.
Fear of rejection. We all want to feel accepted. It’s not only a very basic part of our psychology, it’s an evolutionary survival mechanism. In prehistoric times, if our tribe rejected us, we wouldn’t survive. In publishing terms, we might ask ourselves: What if no one wants to publish my book? What if no one buys it?
What will people think? This is what Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of Write it All Down: How to put your life on the page calls The ‘Uncle Bob’ Problem. In the sense of: what will your friends and family think about the memoir you’ve written? But this can be an inhibiting problem for many writers — not just memoirists.
Fear of criticism. What if people hate your book? It’s easy to be a critic. But, as Theodore Roosevelt said: “It is not the critic who counts… the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.” It’s easy to criticize people who have done the work and achieved something. Not everyone will like your book. That’s OK.
The scale of my project is overwhelming! Overwhelm is a familiar feeling for many writers, especially at the start of a project. Every writer feels it. Sit with it, break your project down into small chunks, and focus on doing one thing at a time. Every journey starts with a single step. Take a small step, every day.
I’m not good enough. Impostor syndrome is a common fear, especially for new writers. But there are LOTS of books published every single year, and some of them (whispers) aren’t very good. So if you can write, why not you?
I’m too old. “Am I too old to become an author?” is a question I often hear during online workshops and other author events I’ve run. But you’re really not. Publishers and agents care about your writing, not your age. And writing is something you can do at any age. Life experience is an advantage.
I’m wasting my time. Nothing is guaranteed in life. We can never know if the book we’re writing will see the light of day (unless you’re in the happy position of writing to a contract). Most writing happens on spec: you write something in the hope of getting it published, produced or agented. You may worry that you’ve spent a huge amount of time on something that may come to nothing. And maybe it won’t. But you need to write anyway, to get better at your craft. And you may be able to use some of that material for something else. So nothing is wasted.
The blank page. Finally, nothing is more intimidating than a blank page or screen! So write something on it. Anything. Spoil the page with terrible words, type some mediocre copy onto your laptop screen. Generate some material you can work with. Writing is rewriting. Just get some words down.
How fear blocks your writing
It’s easy to see how these worries can get in the way of success as an author. Fear can hold you back from starting to write in the first place, or lead to procrastination or perfectionism. It can stop you seeking publication once you have written. It can even get in the way of promoting your work once you are published.
We’ll look at some specific approaches to some of these fears in later posts. But fear itself isn’t really what blocks your writing. It’s what you do as a result of those anxious feelings. Because fear leads to avoidance.
It’s avoidance that stops you writing, leads you to put things off, and prevents you from pursuing your dreams. Fear robs us of our creativity, our dreams and our potential as human beings. It holds us back from taking a chance, of doing what we truly want to do in life.
Avoidance robs you of success — and the chance to become an author.
How to avoid avoidance
So how do you avoid avoidance? The first step is simply to identify your fears — and then take a small step to do rather than avoid something that scares you.
“Do something that scares you every day.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt said: “Do something that scares you every day.” Many of us arrange our lives to avoid stress, anxiety, risk and discomfort as much as possible. But, while minimizing stress is generally a good thing, you will need to step outside your comfort zone if you want to do any creative work. The good news is that it gets easier the more you do it. Your comfort zone expands, and you grow with it.
It doesn’t have to be much. It can be a really small thing. Such as researching agents, Googling writing courses, looking at writing competitions, drafting a pitch letter, sending an email — or simply sitting down to write for 20 minutes. Do the thing you’re avoiding. Feel the fear and do it anyway (to quote Susan Jeffers).
What small thing that scares you will you do today?