9 Crippling Thoughts I Have as a Writer
By: Alisa Barcan
Tags: Self Improvement, Writing, Mindset, Motivation, Commitment

9 Crippling Thoughts I Have as a Writer

And why I keep going despite them

Photo by Ivan Samkov from Pexels

It’s 10.00 pm on Boxing Day and I just finished writing a piece.

I sacrificed quality time with my family so I could wrap it up. It took a fair bit to write, edit, find the right title, subheading, and image. After all that effort, I didn’t hit publish.

Instead, it’s sitting in my draft folder to marinate — just in case I have something else I want to add to it. That’s the excuse anyway. The reality is that my head is spinning with crippling thoughts.

Here are the 9 thoughts I have as a writer that stop me from writing or hitting the publish button.

1. I don’t have anything to say.

I have thousands of thoughts per day, yet nothing to say. Nothing worthy of writing, anyway. Whenever I sit down to write a piece, my mind goes blank.

2. Everything has been written before.

When I do come up with something, a simple search reveals that many have written on the topic before, some more eloquently than I ever could.

3. Readers already know this.

If something wasn’t written about before, it must be common knowledge. Surely, the readers don’t want to hear about it and I don’t want to bore them.

I talk about my area of expertise so often that I tend to think everyone already knows what I know. One of the things I strive for is not to offend my audience by insulting their intelligence. It’s difficult to write (without sounding patronizing) about a topic I think my readers already have knowledge of.

4. English is not my first language.

I did an MSc in English and earned a distinction for my 20,000-word dissertation. I studied at The University of Cambridge. Heck, I even teach there. Nevertheless, English is not my first language and that will always be a fact. I keep telling myself that.

5. Writing platforms are overcrowded.

There are so many talented writers online, covering a wide array of subjects. I can’t help but wonder: where do I fit, if anywhere?

6. I am late to the party.

I started writing in 2017 as a way to offer value to my audience. I only graduated from short-form social media posts to longer articles in July 2018.

Clearly, the party started a long time ago. Everyone has either left or moved upstairs where the rooms are locked for newcomers. How long before I get repetitive stress injury from all that knocking?

7. I have no formal writing qualifications.

This is a big one for me. I’ve never engaged in anything without some formal backing. The thick folder holding all my degrees and qualifications proves it.

I’ve undertaken a few writing courses, but none of them are accredited or recognized. Although I published pieces in well-known publications, including Harvard Business Review, I have a hard time calling myself a writer without a piece of paper to prove it.

8. I have not found my writing voice yet.

I read about flow, writers completing articles in less than one hour, churning out massive amounts of content in short periods of time.

Me? I still wonder if my pieces are too serious, how to incorporate humor without crossing the line, and if my writing will ever evolve to be as witty as that of the writers I admire.

9. I will soon run out of ideas.

I don’t write about anything and everything. I have a niche and the topics that fit that niche are coaching, money, business, and entrepreneurship.

How long before I start repeating myself? How long before the quality of my pieces starts to go down because I’m stretching a marginally relevant idea into a full-blown article?