It is exceptionally difficult to write well. And it becomes much more difficult when the writer is afraid of doing the work.
There are a lot of legitimate fears for writers. Here are a few:
- You don’t know enough to do the writing.
- You don’t know what readers will be interested in.
- Your readers know more about the subject than you do.
And, of course, the big fear: you don’t write very well.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Other pursuits have their own sets of fears.
Some fears are unfounded. You might fear an alien invasion. I don’t expect one this month (and I have it on good authority we won’t have one this year). You might fear the zombie apocalypse. There are excellent training resources to help you prepare for this contingency
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But others, like those I’ve listed above for writers, are more realistic. The best way to deal with them is to face them. And the big one, that fear that you don’t write well enough, can be eliminated by working on your writing and doing more writing assignments. Let’s get started with this one.
For today’s assignment, write a list of your writing fears. Leave your other worries behind for the moment and just focus on your fears about writing.
List them out, then for each one write a paragraph detailing exactly what you’re concerned about.
When you’ve completed this step write another paragraph with a solution for how you’ll address that fear.
Fear can be about uncertainty. Fears based on real, known threats can often be addressed. Using writing to address your fears about writing can help you see clearly and reduce the impact of the things that you fear.
Repeat this assignment regularly to see if you’ve eliminated any writing fears from your list and if you need to add any new ones to confront.
The Writing Assignment: Write About Your Fears by Randy Murray, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.