5 Steps To Overcoming Your Fear Of Writing
The thing most students dread the most is completing writing assignments. It isn’t that they’re too tedious, uninteresting or have lack of knowledge on the subject. The biggest obstacle they face is fear.
Not just students face this problem. Many people – smart, capable, articulate people – all suffer from the same fears. Some think that what they have to say isn’t worth reading. Some dismay backlash or criticism. When thinking about getting published, anxiety can halt submissions for fear of endless rejection.
Whether you are a struggling student who hates writing papers, an aspiring blogger looking for the confidence to start publishing his or her material, or are contemplating having books or articles published in the future. Today, we would like to examine some of the most common fears associated with writing and how you can overcome them.
1. Forget about perfection.
There is no such thing as a perfect manuscript. If you pay close enough attention 30% of books, articles, blog posts, etc. that have ever been published has apparent errors and flaws. This is true of both self-published work and that which goes through numerous redactions before being released under a major label.
You will make mistakes. Some sentences will seem a little disjointed. You will commit typos, include extraneous information that doesn’t need to be there, go off on various tangents and wonder where you were going with the thought in the first place.
We can all agree that as human beings we can never indeed be completely perfect. That is why even the best authors have several eyes check their works since we are all prone to make silly mistakes while trying to put our ideas down on paper. However, it is important to realize that you are not alone in this and that we all go through the motions to create excellent articles for our intended audience. With that in mind, as a student when faced with a big assignment that could impact the value of the diploma then it might be time to consider using a professional essay writing service to proofread the work and leave some helpful comments. This comes in handy especially because they represent an impartial third-party who is only interested in making sure the academic piece is up to par.
2. Don’t worry about spelling and grammar on a first draft.
Priority in writing is to get thoughts out on paper while they are fresh in your mind. Don’t stall the process because you can forget what gone to say by consuming over misplaced commas. Make a mental note of it and correct it when you edit.
If you still are not confident, you can always enlist the aid of tools like Grammarly or Hemingway to spotlight errors you may have missed so fix the problems and be satisfied with the changes.
3. Proofread, but don’t obsess.
Once you are finished with the manuscript, put it down for at least a day and concern yourself with other things. Don’t pick up or even think – about the written. After a day (or more), go back and proofread. Make changes where they are necessary. At that point, you should merely submit or publish the piece. Commit to the final draft and submit.
4. Stop telling yourself “it stinks!”
Our thoughts have a direct effect on our perceptions. This is true of everything, and that includes writing. We hyper-criticize ourselves in many areas of life. If you have a good singing voice that people always compliment, it probably still sounds strange. The way you speak and your physical mannerisms seem different to you when compared to other people when, in reality, they probably aren’t.
It’s this part of our psyche that can wreak the most havoc in your writing. Your own words might seem a little strange scrambled out on paper, but there are ways to tell if they are or not. The tools mentioned above are an excellent way to gauge how “normal” your message is.
You can also get someone else or even a few people that are deemed trustworthy, to read over your work and give their opinions about it. Chances are you will get much more positive feedback than anticipated.
5. Always strive to do better
Learn from the mistakes you make. Catalog them and remember them when you write your next piece. Above all else, you need to take your ego out of the equation. Don’t get discouraged if you get some negative feedback on a blog post. Don’t decide to give up even if you get a pile of rejections from publishers. There is a reason why your writing is getting that kind of feedback. Dig a little deeper and see if you can figure it out.
Here are a few more things you can do to help improve your writing:
Read – because you will only become a good writer if you are an avid reader. There is no shortcutting this step.
Know Your Genre or Niche Well – because, as the saying goes, you should always, “write what you know,” even if you have to do significant research to get there.
Accept constructive (and non-constructive) criticism – because there will always be critics. Learn how to separate helpful hints from hurtful jabs. Heed the former, ignore the latter.
Stop telling yourself you can’t – because self-fulfilling prophecies are a thing. Don’t sabotage your hard work by becoming your own worst critic.
Start right now – because, if you love to write, you should like the idea of writing well and getting better all the time.
An excellent place to start with that would be to re-read and implement the advice in this article before you attempt to write anything else. When you write your next piece, apply the success principles you learned to both the editing and critiquing of it. Don’t be obsessive about making changes or make too many. Don’t sacrifice the heart of your message by over-modifying the messaging.
Final Takeaway
You’re already better at this than you think you are. Not only are you a competent writer already, but you also have all kinds of bits of help and supports available to you to get even better. Stop trying to convince yourself otherwise. You’ve got this.
Finally, be smart in the planning, execution, and submission of everything you write. Expect there to be critics and nay-sayers. Learn to be thankful when criticism is constructive and find the useful bits in even the most hurtful comments and opinions. All of these things together will work in tandem to make you the writer you want to be. 
