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Overcome Your Writing Fears with These 9 Simple Strategies
Beginning, or even continuing, a writing project can be a daunting task. There are many factors to consider before you dive in - and many fears that may arise. Today we wanted to share some fears that we see often, and how to overcome them so you can keep working on your next masterpiece!
Beginning, or even continuing, a writing project can be a daunting task. There are many factors to consider before you dive in - and many fears that may arise.
Today we wanted to share some fears that we see often, and how to overcome them so you can keep working on your next masterpiece!
All the Writing Fears (or at Least a Lot of Them)
Picture this: you’ve got a brilliant idea (or at least an idea) and you’re ready to write. BUT, and this is a big one, you haven’t really planned anything out. You may not even know much about the characters or the world, but dang it! You want to write the thing. Worrying about fully developing an idea can hold you back, especially if/when you feel like if you don’t plan more it may not be any good.
The good news is that as long as you have an idea, you can start writing. Maybe you just have a couple of characters who keep coming to mind, or you’re picturing one certain scene. If that’s what you’ve got, go for it! Focus on writing and developing those bits first - then you can work on planning and writing more when you have a better feel for where you see the story going.
Amidst your thoughts about developing your idea enough, you may worry if people will even “get it.” What if they don’t understand? What if you can’t find the right words to express the image in your mind? Unfortunately, you can’t control what other people understand of your work. You can do your best to make sure your writing is as clear and precise as possible, and get feedback as you go along, but that’s about it. There’s no way to connect with everyone, and that’s okay! You don’t need to.
Along these same lines, writers often fear that people won’t “buy in” or be interested in what you have to say. For non-fiction writers, it may be about not being persuasive enough. For fiction writers, it may be about readers not relating enough to your characters and story. Either way, the only thing you need to worry about is reaching your ideal audience - the readers you know will love your book.
Audience is a funny thing: it can both thrill and terrify you, especially when it comes to your writing! Many writers, especially new writers, are especially worried about not having a big enough following or a wide enough audience. It’s a lot of work to build a social media following, and an audience of loyal readers. And actually, having an audience is a big part of being successful as a writer because that’s the way you reach “your” people! The key is that it takes time - the more effort you put in interacting with people and sharing your ideas, the easier (and more natural) it will feel to grow your following.
Probably the most common, and sometimes the most debilitating, fear is being compared to others. While it’s not always a bad thing to be compared to other writers (hello, who doesn’t want to be compared to someone great?!), it doesn’t feel good when the comments are about you not being as “good” as other writers. This is especially true if you’ve been inspired by someone you love and are trying to write something similar.
Then the worry becomes a fear that your idea isn’t original. While we hate to be the bearer of bad news, you probably aren’t going to have a ground-breaking, never-been-done-before idea. It’s natural to get ideas from what you read and see in the world! You just need to make sure that whatever you’re working on doesn’t copy anyone directly (that’s plagiarism). Sometimes we take ideas from what we’ve read and it morphs into our own unique thing, and that’s great - just make sure you’re not copying from someone else directly. Put your spin on it. After all, that’s what will excite people!
9 Ways to Overcome Writing Fear
While there may be quite a few fears, there are some pretty simple and effective ways to fight back.
Figure out the ultimate outcome. If you figure out what you want to happen in the big picture, it will help dispel the fear that your idea won’t be developed enough.
Think about yourself. What do you enjoy reading and writing about? What are your favorite genres, tropes, archetypes, etc.? What are you writing: a novel, poem, short story, something else? All of this info factors into how your idea will play out. If you know where your story is headed, it’s easier to see the bigger picture and work your way towards that outcome.
Take the free 10 Day Organize Your Book course. During these 10 days, you’ll plot your book (or whip your Work in Progress back into shape), organize your ideas, technology, and space and just feel good about your writing.
Imagine your ideal audience. Who are you writing for? Consider age groups, genre types, niche groups, or whomever you think would enjoy your writing the most. Once you have an ideal audience, you can write with them in mind. If you’re stuck on audience (it happens to all of us sometimes!), read this, it will help.
Find other authors in the same genre on social media and follow them. It helps to know that you’re not alone no matter what type of writing you do. There’s an audience for all topics, you just need to make sure you’re a part of that community so when you share your work, it’ll be found by people who’ll be excited to read it.
Set a timer for your writing sessions. Also called writing sprints, having a timer can be helpful to push past fear of writer's block. Read the older part of your writing first if you’ve already started, then set a timer and focus on a tiny section. Give yourself the freedom to be as sloppy as you want (& DO NOT edit as you’re writing). If, in the end, it doesn’t make the cut, at least you’ll make progress and get next part in your writing.
Get the failure workbook. It’s called “How to Stop Feeling Like a Failure in 5 Simple Steps” - we clearly like keeping things simple around here! The workbook walks you through widespread myths about writing (that are totally not true), the mindset you’ll need to be successful, and exercises about how to get there. Super helpful. You’ll be writing with confidence in no time!
Practice. Write as much as you can and as often as you can. This will help you improve your writing and help to dispel the fear of not being good enough.
Don’t show anyone, at least at first. One of our favorite strategies is to keep your writing to yourself until you decide it’s ready enough to share. A first draft is never perfect, and will need a lot of edits before it’s ready for readers. You don’t want your unfinished, unpolished work being compared to other writer’s final drafts, it's not fair to yourself or your writing! While we always encourage feedback, don’t feel pressured to show your writing to anyone while it’s still brand new, even if they mean well.
My challenge to you is to push past your fears and write!
What fears have been holding you back? Do you have an idea that you need help developing? Have you had success overcoming similar fears? I’d love to hear about your experiences! Find me on social media or drop a comment below
Let’s chat because you, my friend, are on your way to great writing.
How to Make a Table of Contents in Google Docs
Today I wanted to share how to create a working Table of Contents for Google Docs, because it’s saved SO much time and energy as I’ve been working on my book. It will also work for you as you write more, you don’t have to have chapters already in place or anything!
I’m super into organization. It’s kind of crazy, honestly. Think Post-Its and color coding everywhere.
The one place I wasn’t organized was my creative writing. Elsewhere, I’ve written about how I am pretty free range with my creative work because it feels better for me that way. While I’m very much still in favor of doing what feels best for my creative writing, once you actually have a good amount of writing it gets unwieldy without some sort of organization. It’s much easier to be able to click a link and have the document jump to where you want to go.
No one wants to scroll through 10K words to find the one you just saw that you wanted to fix. Especially if you don’t remember what it is, but you know you’d recognize it if you saw it again. Believe me, personal experience has shown that this method is irritating at best and highly uninspirational when you actually want to get some creative work done.
Hence the Table of Contents - lovingly called the ToC for short - was born. At least in my world.
I’m a huge fan of the Google Suite, and I use Google Docs for just about everything. It’s not that there aren’t downfalls, but Google Docs is cloud-based, which means that it saves for me. You can also open it anywhere you can log into Google from - pretty great.
This is why my novel lives primarily in a Google Doc. I definitely have backups (because you should ALWAYS have backups), but anytime I write digitally, it’s in that Google Doc. Today I wanted to share how to create a working Table of Contents for Google Docs, because it’s saved SO much time and energy as I’ve been working on my book. It will also work for you as you write more, you don’t have to have chapters already in place or anything!
How to Make a Table of Contents in Google Docs
Creating a ToC in Google Docs is quick and easy. There are multiple ways to go about it, and there is an option to use a pre-made table of contents in Google Docs.
I personally don’t use that because I feel like the way I’m going to show you (that I use on the daily) is easier and more flexible; however, feel free to experiment with whatever you like as you’re writing!
To make a Google Docs Table of Contents like mine, there are just 4 steps. Watch the video for a full walkthrough, or read on below to create your own.
1. Create a Blank Table of Contents Page with the Chapter Titles Listed
Open up a brand new document. On the top, write out the title of your project (or a working title - just call it something you can easily remember). Underneath that, write out “Table of Contents.”
You can style these however you like with fonts & colors. Personally I like to keep things plain and simple, but if you’re feeling fancy, change the font if you want!
The last part of this first step is to type out the chapter or section titles, each on their own line. If you have working titles, you can use those. If you want to use plain numbers, that’s fine, too. The goal is to be able to easily recognize the section of writing, click on it, and have it take you to that section of writing.
When you’re starting a brand new project, and thus a brand new document, I recommend just putting in a few filler titles like “Chapter 1” and “Chapter 2” or “Section 1” and “Section 2.”
The beauty of this system, aside from flexibility, is that you can easily add to your ToC as you write rather than committing to a specific number of sections or chapters. So if this is brand new, add a few fillers for now to get yourself set up and familiar with how it works.
2. Type out Titles/Text for Chapters in the Body of the Document
Once you have your Table of Contents page typed and ready to go, you can begin to add body text to the document.
If this is a new document: Copy and paste the titles from the first page. The titles on the Table of Contents page should match the titles that are in your document, that way when you set up your links, it’s very easy for you to tell which section you just landed on. Since you don’t have any writing yet, you can leave them single spaced or put a space in between each title. Personally, I like an extra space because then I can just click it and type there immediately.
If you have a Work in Progress: If you already have writing that you’re trying to whip into shape (good for you!), go through and give each section or chapter a title. Whether the name is permanent or not doesn’t matter. The goal, again, is to be able to easily locate each specific section of writing, so name it something you’ll be able to easily remember what happens in that section.
3. Add a Bookmark to the Title of Each Chapter
So far, you have your Table of Contents page, with chapter/section titles, and your titles in the text of the document. The next step is to make a bookmark for each of the titles in the text of the Google Doc.
The process is simple: highlight the text of one chapter/section title, click “Insert” in the top left corner of the menu, and select the “Bookmark” option. That’s it! Create separate bookmarks for each of your titles. DO NOT do anything with the Table of Contents page yet, just add your bookmarks to the text in the body of your document.
4. On the Table of Contents Page, Add a Link to each Chapter Title for the Corresponding Bookmark
Once you’ve added your bookmarks to the text of your Google Doc, you get to do the fun part: link them to the Table of Contents!
All you have to do to link to your brand new bookmarks is: Go to the ToC page, highlight the first chapter/section title (like you did when you were creating your bookmarks), and select “Insert” in the top left corner of the menu. Choose the “Link” option. From there, you have 2 choices: you can search for the name of the bookmark (remember, it should match what you see on your ToC for easy reference) OR you can choose the “In this document” option at the bottom of the pop up.
If you search for the name, simply click it when it appears and you’re done! Your link will appear. If you open “In this document” it will present a list of bookmarks for you to choose from. Click the right one and it will appear as a link.
So that’s it! Just 4 simple steps that will probably take you less than 10 minutes to make your project much more organized and easy to work with moving forward.
My challenge to you is to create your very own table of contents.
Did you set up your Google Docs Table of Contents? How did it go? I’d love to hear about your experiences and recommendations! Find me on social media or drop a comment below.
Let’s chat because you, my friend, are on your way to great - and organized - writing.