How to Overcome Your Fear of Writing

“Writing is merely public speaking on paper, but to a much larger audience.”

― Ralph Keyes, The Courage to Write: How Writers Transcend Fear

1. Face your fear of writing head-on.

Running away from your fear of writing is not a good thing to do. It’s best if you face your fear head-on, and the best way to do that is to put your head down and write.

“The most understandable trap is to wait for fear to subside before starting one’s journey. It doesn’t, won’t, and shouldn’t. Too much good writing comes from writers on the edge. Trying to defeat or portage around normal writing anxieties merely postpones the day when we confront our fears directly and find the courage to write.”

― Ralph Keyes, The Courage to Write: How Writers Transcend Fear

2. Don’t be a writing procrastinator.

It’s so easy to put things off, but it’s a nasty habit most of the time. It’s an especially bad habit when it comes to writing. You’ll never get anything written if you keep postponing it. So stop procrastinating and start writing.

“If I waited till I felt like writing, I’d never write at all.”

— Anne Tyler, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist

3. If your writing gets criticized, learn from it.

There are always critics out there. Don’t let them get you down. When you get criticism, try to learn from it, especially if it’s constructive criticism.

“If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.” — Natalie Goldberg

4. Don’t revise your writing all the time.

If you constantly revise while you’re writing something, it’ll take you out of your writing flow and be detrimental to getting much writing done.

Write the first draft without stopping to revise. After you finish that draft, you can go back and edit to your heart’s content.

“The beautiful part of writing is that you don’t have to get it right the first time unlike, say, brain surgery.”

— Robert Cormier

5. Setting writing goals is essential.

It’s important when writing to set some goals for yourself. For example, set a goal where you’re going to write X number of pages per day. Or you can set a goal of writing at least one article or story a day.

Make sure the goals are reachable, though. It does no good to set goals that are so unrealistic that you won’t be able to reach them, which would just lead to frustration. So be sure to set realistic, attainable goals. But don’t make them so easy that you’re not stretching yourself to accomplish more than you might otherwise do.

Remember this old saying:

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars.”

— Les Brown

6. Don’t run away from your fear of writing — instead, embrace it.

Don’t let the fear of writing paralyze you into inaction. The only way to conquer something you fear is to face it. The same goes for fear of writing. Tell yourself that you’re going to get on with your writing and then, as the Nike slogan says, “Just Do It!”.

“Go out into the world and run straight at whatever you fear the most.”

— Kerr Cuhulain

7. You can do whatever your character can do.

When you write a story, your lead character is not afraid to do what he or she must do. Otherwise, you couldn’t move the action forward.

Well, when it comes to writing, you should model yourself after a character in one of your stories and move your writing action forward. If your fictional character can do it, then so can you in real life.

“Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.”

— Jane Yolen

8. If you need help with your writing, just ask for it.

We all like to think we can get any job done without asking for help. But that’s just not thinking realistically or practically. There are times when refusing to ask for help is counterproductive, and that is true in your writing endeavors, as well.

So if you need help with something, just ask for it. Most people are happy to help, especially if they know you would reciprocate if the proverbial shoe were on the other foot.

“A writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, or because everything she does is golden. A writer is a writer because, even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.”

— Junot Diaz

If you follow the eight tips listed above, you’ll conquer your fear of writing in public and be a successful writer.

“Each time you write something, part of you grows. You’re training your artistic muscles to find your voice.”

— Pen Densham

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Thanks for reading. Copyright Terry Mansfield. All rights reserved.