#writing postivity

I’ll write it

These are top 8 insecurities I get about writing. The answers are what best worked for me to hear from writer friends or read about as reassurance. In case someone needed to hear this as well.

1. A: Writing is really hard.

B: Yep, that's why not everyone is writing.

2. A: My notes are confusing me.

B: You are trying to build an entire new world. If it wasn't complex it wouldn't be good.

3. A: Understanding my characters is so complicated. Everytime I think I know them, I discover something new again.

B: You are inventing human lives. Their psychology, personality, backstory, everything. You think that happens overnight if it should resemble a real human being even the tiniest bit? 

4. A: I have this burning story but what if I can't tell it the right way? What if someone could tell it better?

B: No one can tell your story better than you. Your plot, your thinking, your characters, your skill and pacing - they are the tools to tell this story the best possible way. No one can tell this story better than you. 

5. A: What if I am not really a writer? Just someone who dreams about it?

B: A writer breathes and dreams stories. They live inside you and you can put them into existence. You have the power no matter the stage you are at. It's in your mind.

6. A: Shouldn't writing be more enjoyable? What if I'm not a writer if I don't like it all the time?

B: Writing is hard. It's mentally draining, creatively demanding and time consuming - not to mention the skills that need to be build for it. But you chose it for something. Whatever part of writing you enjoy, whatever part you do it for, be it the dreaming, outlining, writing, editing or even just reading your story or the feedback it gets posted - you are still a writer.

7. A: Why is writing well so difficult? Does it mean I'm not a writer when I struggle to write well?

B: Writing is a skill and habit. The more you do it the easier it becomes and the better you become. You can build this ability  along yourself and your book. 

8. A: Why am I writing again, when it's so rough?

You have all the tools you need to write a riveting novel capable of triggering a dopamine rush in your reader’s brain that will make her forget everything else: the series she was about to binge watch, the big meeting tomorrow at work, and even better, all those nattering doubts about, well, everything, that seem to descend like a swarm of mosquitoes the later it gets.

Instead, she’ll get a mini-vacation, a moment of solace, of sanctuary as she takes refuge in your novel, all the while picking up inside intel into what really makes people tick.

And when she finally turns that last page, she will emerge changed, because whether she knows it or not, her view of the world will have shifted. It might shift in a small way, or it might be a really dramatic change that impacts everyone and everything around her. After all, riveting novels have been known to change the world itself.

Like Kill the Mockingbird, that changed how people think. How? By changing how they felt.

Because the only way to change how someone thinks about something, is to first change how they feel about it.

You have the power. Now go use it.