Today I wanted to talk about all the voices that writers must face. In the next several weeks, I’ll be breaking each of these voices down and sharing practical tips for how to abolish them.
I say abolish, but I started this blog with the intention of telling you the truth about The Voices. And if I’m telling you the truth, I must say that these voices will probably never go away. But we can be stronger than the voices that come bombarding us in our weak moments.
All The Voices, at the heart of them, boil down to self-doubt. Some of them are the same across the board, and by that I mean across nonfiction, fiction and poetry. Some of them are more prominent in particular genres. Some of them are louder in our weaker areas. Some of them may not bother us at all. We’ll talk about all of that in the weeks to come.
But, for now, I’m just going to introduce you to them, even though I’m pretty sure you already know them.
There is the I Can’t Do This Voice.
There is the Who Would Even Read This Voice.
There is the This is Terrible Voice.
And there is the You’re Wrong Voice.
I’m sure there are more voices, but these are the voices that visit me the most when I’m writing, thinking about writing, on the brink of hitting “publish,” when I’m lying in bed at night and my mind won’t turn off because creative work is difficult to turn off.
Now. I have written stories for decades. I have self-published eighteen books this year alone. I have a book out on submission with traditional publishers. And yet I opened my laptop yesterday to brainstorm a series that people already love, and I could not hear my own thoughts for the shouting. My heart pounded. My throat dried out. My fingers shook.
This happens to all of us. So what I first want you to know is that you are not alone. It doesn’t matter where you are in your writing journey—you will fall prey to the voices at some point. They are relentless in their pursuit. But they won’t win unless we let them.
[Tweet “The voices of doubt we face as writers won’t win unless we let them. Don’t let them.”]
The voices stem from many different things: wounds in our past, things others have said about us or our writing, our own expectations, the nature of being a writer and the pervasive fear of humiliating ourselves. These voices can paralyze us if we don’t know how to battle them.
But there are some ways to face them head-on and let them know that they will not win your heart. In the next few weeks, I’ll be detailing exactly that—-how to battle the voices that can keep you from realizing your full potential as a writer.
When we’re so entrenched in our writing lives, we can often lose sight of the fact that most writers battle the same voices we do. They make it look so effortless, don’t they? So, for now, I want you to know that you are not alone.
You can do this.
Someone will read it.
It is not terrible.
And you are not wrong.
Exercise:
Write down the voices you hear in your head when you announce that you’re going to write something or publish something or you’re simply thinking about writing or publishing something. (And don’t worry. I’m not asking you to write them down so they win. This is so you will win against their attack. We first have to know our enemy to defeat him (or her).)
