Daily writing is essential to becoming a great writer. In this post, James Prescott shares how in just 10 minutes a day, you can unleash the fearless writer in you!
5 years ago I had a writing crisis. I could find my true voice, I didn’t know what I was here to write. I had nothing new to say. I sat at my computer and simply had nothing. I kept running away from doing work. Nothing I did was good enough. And I had some major failures which almost destroyed me.
I got to a point where I’d had a major failure with my blog and e-book. People hadn’t showed up to read it, to sign up for my list, or listen to my work. And I was all out of ideas, and wanted to run away from writing Nothing was good enough.
And much of the writing I did do, wasn’t authentic, wasn’t honest and was empty.
The reason? Fear.
If you’re a writer, then you’ll have experienced fear. It just goes with the territory. Fear is part of writing in many ways. And it’s perfectly logical, if you think about it. Because whenever we write, we are bearing a piece of our soul. We’re putting a piece of ourselves out into the world for all to see, to praise, to judge – and, yes, to criticise.
It takes great courage to share work publicly. Especially personal stories, because when we share personal stories and they are ‘rejected’, it’s like part our own story is being rejected.
And that’s a killer.
In my own experience, fear manifests itself in several ways.
1) Writers block is the biggest manifestation of fear in writers. Anytime you’re lacking ideas, your mind is paralysed, you can’t even physically type anything, or finish a project – it’s fear at work. It’s fear trying to convince you your work is bad, that you’re a bad writer and it’s not worth even showing up.
2) Perfectionism is another form of fear. To keep on working on a project, whether its a book or a blog post, or something else, way beyond necessary, and never ben able to finish – is a sign you’re afraid your work will never be good enough for anyone. Fear is is control.
3) Procrastination Is the third way fear sneaks in to our writing. When you’re putting off a project for days, weeks and even months, it’s fear trying to tell you never to share your work.
All of these habits come from the following fears:
- Fears our work isn’t good enough, and never will be.
- Fear people will reject our work – and by definition, reject us.
- Fear of success and how to cope with all that comes with it.
- Fear our work won’t sell and our big dreams will be crushed.
- Fear that we’re not as good as we think we are.
And above all, this is all tied to a fear WE are not enough.
This fear comes from the idea that our value comes from what we do, and what others say about us. As a writer, this shows itself when we put our security and value in book sales, subscriber numbers, page views, what magazines we write for, how much money we make.
I’m telling you now, if you rate yourself, or your work, based on any of these variables, you’ll never feel satisfied. And you could end up losing your authenticity.
I know. This happened to me. When I was having this struggle five years ago, I asked some trusted friends to help me understand what was happening.
They all confirmed what deep down I already knew. I’d lost something in the previous 6 months. My writing wasn’t what it was. I’d lost my voice.
Fear had gotten hold of me. It had sucked my authenticity, stopped me writing, and had me believing my work simply wasn’t good enough. Writers block, perfectionism and procrastination were all very present, in different ways. Fear was in control, and my writing suffered. All the fears I listed above were dominating my life.
And the core problem was very simply that I believed I wasn’t enough, and I’d tied my own value and security from my work and the response to that work.
I know for a fact you get your value from page views, money, stats, subscriber lists, or book sales, it will begin to influence all the work you do. It will create fear in you, and this fear will either stop you working at all, or you’ll end up creating inauthentic work.
So how did I deal with this?
First, I took a break from public writing. I just stopped publishing anything publishing. And I set no deadline for this. I just stopped public writing.
Second, I committed to writing 6 days a week, for myself. Just writing for 10-15 minutes a day. With no plan, no editing, no demands on me, no responsibility to anyone, no rules. Just sit, and write whatever gibberish was inside of me. Some days it took a while for words to come. Sometimes only a few sentences came.
But I kept going, and over time, I began to find messages coming out. Messages about being authentic, being honest, about how to create great original, true work, and discover your truest self. It became the most liberating, creative seasons of my life.
I found that fear had gone. Or rather, I had let go of fear.
And when I’d let go of fear, it had freed me to create my most honest, most authentic work. It had freed me to fail. Freed me from the need to impress, need to be perfect. I didn’t want to avoid work anymore, I wanted to embrace it.
I found I had tens of blog posts just pouring out of me to be shared. Two e-books were just birthed out of his overflow of creativity.
And when I began marketing and promoting these blog posts and e-books, I was doing it differently.
I wasn’t promoting me. I wasn’t even promoting a product.
I was promoting a message. A message I believed in and cared about. A message born in my heart, that was part of who I was, and wanted people to hear.
That’s what authentic writing and marketing is. It’s sharing a message born in your heart, which you desperately believe in. And we only do this, if we break through fear and connect with our hearts.
So how do we do this?
- Spend 5 minutes minimum a day free-writing. Writing for yourself, writing without an agenda, without a plan, without editing, without needing to show it to anyone. You can do this on your phone, you can do this in a notebook, anywhere. Do this for a week, and then start to look for patterns. Start to look for topics, issues, questions, which seem to keep cropping up. Then in week 2, free write with those as prompts. Follow your curiosity, follow your heart. Again, not showing to anyone.
- Keep going. Just keep writing from your heart every day and see what happens. Give yourself permission, once in a while, not to write publicly for a month, and invest the time in writing regularly to find your voice. Not everyone will need to do this…but allowing the field to be fallow for a season every so often, allows the soil to become fertile again. Because when you come back, you’ll be refreshed, inspired, and more connected with your true self and true voice.
When you come back, and start writing publicly again, promote the message, not yourself, and not a product. Promote a message you really care about. - Choose to believe that your value and worth is inherent. You have value and worth because you’re alive and breathing, not because of what you achieve, or what others think of you or your work, or how many or few people like or read your work. Your work has value because you made it, not because of what others think of it or how much it sells. And it doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be true.
I think if you follow these steps, it will liberate you from fear. It will set you free from the need to be perfect, from the need to achieve, from needing others opinions or good readership or sales figures to feel like your work is worthwhile.
It will free you to create the work you were born to make. Work that is birthed in your heart and soul, which you believe in. You’ll find a story and a message you want to share with everyone, and that’s truly yours – and you won’t care what others think, you’ll be satisfied you shared your story, your message, and were true to who you are.
And that way, we all get to hear your story, and the authentic message you have for us – and that way, everyone benefits – and you’ll be more in tune with your true self than ever before.
James Prescott is a writer, podcaster, writing coach & author of the books ‘Dance Of The Writer’, ‘Unlocking Creativity’ and ‘Mosaic Of Grace’. James is passionate about helping writers & creators find their authentic voice, and find their true calling. He is listed as a ‘Top Writer’ on creativity and writing on Medium. You can find James online at jamesprescott.co.uk , you can read his Medium posts here, and follow him on Twitter at @JamesPrescott77
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