Your Writing Questions, Answered

Here’s a question that came to my Instagram, and which has been dancing in my mind ever since:

Hey there! I’ve written almost an entire book and chunks of others. Tend to feel the fear sink creep in at a certain point though. The fear of doing something with any of it; of sharing my truth. Can I ask… do you have any advice to offer around pushing forward past mental blocks when it comes to writing? Past fear?

To me this is a question of confidence–something which I struggle with all the time as a writer. The self-doubt creeps in whenever I’m doing a public reading, whenever someone talks to me about one of my books (even though, often, they are saying something nice), whenever I start the day planning to write…it’s there nearly all the time. The only time it’s not there is when I’m actually writing. When I manage to push aside my anxiety that anything I’m writing is even worth bothering with, when I start typing and move my head from the outside of the writing to the inside of the story, then those nagging fears disappear.

The rest of the time, I live with those fears. And so does nearly every other writer and storyteller I know. I think if I didn’t feel worried that my work was worth it, I wouldn’t work as hard as I do. I’d settle with the first draft, maybe with the second, and I’d decide it was good enough. I’d never strive or push or dig any deeper. Every single book I’ve published reinforces my belief that I could have done a better job–not that I didn’t do the best I could at the time, but each book teaches me new ways to write, hopefully better next time around. I couldn’t learn if I didn’t keep writing, and so I keep doing it despite my lack of confidence.

I listen to The Moth whenever I can. For those of you who don’t know it, The Moth is a Podcast where regular people tell their stories. These people stand up in front of audiences and share their truths. These stories are heartbreaking or funny or wise; they leave me in tears or laughing out loud or stunned. The stories are always deeply personal and I listen in awe that people can be so brave. Although these aren’t written stories, the same conceptual framework is there as it is for writers–the urge to share a story, the cracking open of those words. But these people have the added fear-factor of being in front of a live audience. And they do it anyway.

I came to writing from a place of privilege, supported by my family, supported by my partner. I’ve gone on to publish eight books with two more on the way. And despite this start point and those books of mine in the world, I still find myself full of doubt and anxiety around why I do what I do. I’ve learned to take the feeling as part of the job, part of writing, and I live with it, like I might live with a hairy monster–it hangs out around the house, sometimes I say hello, sometimes I ignore it, sometimes I cower. Translating this to practical advice, I sit and I write, I send work out, I get rejections (still now, LOTS of them), I feel sorry for myself, I use that feeling to sit down and write… and so on.

For me, I write even though I feel scared to share my stories. Perhaps because I feel scared. I know other people are out there are feeling just as scared and doing it anyway–doing it even in front of audiences! I write because I am inspired to dig as deep as I can to find the stories that I want to share–not because I think anyone else should read them, but because when I’m actually writing the words down, then I feel strong.

If anyone else has a question for me about writing, you can contact me easily through the links at the top and side of this page. And if you want to come and join me on one of my writing courses, please start with Freeflow, which is FREE!