What’s Your Worst Writing Fear? Dread and Trepidation from Our Editorial Team

What’s Your Worst Writing Fear? Dread and Trepidation from Our Editorial Team

Reader Comments (21)

  1. Hey Sonia!

    I used to have a lot of fear fo writing anything and publishing because I was very insecure of my writing style and even my grammar!

    I’m a high school dropout and I’m not even from the US. English was my second language growing up (it is my first language now haha!).

    But, I overcame all of that and a little bit more.

    I don’t really have any fears with the content I create, anymore. I just write write and write!

    Of course, I write with purpose and intention. If the content gets drowned in the web – is not because my writing is bad or anything like that but it is because of my marketing of it. This is something I have learned from experience and from talking to so many bloggers online. I have read articles on blogs that get a lot of traffic – that are really bad. But they get a lot of comments. And the reason is because the blogger promotes the heck out of that content and blog!

    So, if any content gets crickets online, it’s never really because of the content, but a number of people you present that content to. If you get crickets, you just need a few more hundred people reading your content. Understanding this will take away a lot of fear!

    Just my 2cents! 🙂

    I enjoyed reading this post!

    Thanks!

    Cheers! 😀

  2. Hi Sonia,

    I feared letting go blogs that did not match my voice, my tone and that simply were not resonant with me or my readers. Weird, right?

    So many bloggers trip over themselves to get featured on blogs where few folks resonate with their writing style. Like me; I am not in love with all I write, but I am clear on it. Meaning that when I write, it is enough. Clarity in action. Or, the idea that everything is all good, all of the time. This clear, at peace, contented vibe would not resonate with more of a writing purist’s view, so I spend no time trying to get featured on such blogs.

    But for a while, I feared that not putting on my Purist’s Hat and writing a post to get placed on these blogs was leaving too much on the table, or that if I didn’t place guesties in these spots, I’d flat out fail.

    I eventually understood that nothing counts more than hanging in spots where resonant readers hang out, and nothing countless less than being featured in spots were most folks don’t resonate with your work. When I let go that fear, my blog grew like a freaking weed and I seemed to find an unending flow of guest post invites from people who dug my raw, rough and ready writing style.

    Good post Sonia. Always cool to explore our fears.

    Ryan

  3. It helps me to recall a thought mentioned by Sir Laurence Olivier:
    “No matter how well you perform, there’s always somebody of intelligent opinion who thinks it’s lousy.”
    So just get on with it.

  4. Sonia–

    I know you’re mostly joking about the podcast insomnia thing, but in all honesty, they’re fantastic.

  5. I have a humor blog, so often I fear that it is not funny enough. Because I am the writer and these are the thoughts from my own head, I rarely get to experience the humor in the same way that my reader does, so I’m never 100% sure that what I believe is funny will translate on to the page. I also struggle with word choice, and I’ll spend a lot of time trying to pick the funniest word between two or three choices, but none of the words are technically funnier. This all ties into perfectionism and not feeling good enough.

  6. I think writing will always sprout fear in us, because it shows people a glimpse of who you are. And when readers give a negative feedback about your copy, it feels like you’re the one being judged.

    Even though, we gotta admit, it feels freakin’ awesome and fulfilling when you write a well-received, kick-ass craft.

  7. Great article! The quote from Kevin Kelly really resonated with me too when you shared it in your post last week, so it’s great to see a story related to that. Here’s a question though, and perhaps a topic for another post, how do you find away through it on the days you feel inadequate or have anxiety around creating that perfect story? What do you do to talk yourself back from the ledge?

  8. Hi Sonia,

    Another great post with a relevant question. I guess what fears me are people’s opinions of what I post. Or even worse, if I get something wrong. I like doing supercar articles, and my worst fear was getting a detail wrong–that would kill my authority.

    But it goes with the territory. As writers, we need to be thick-skinned and just care about the engagement; whatever it is.

    All the best,
    Hazim

  9. My fear is most definitely the stage where you go ‘word blind’. The copy is written, edited, read, re-read and send to design. You’re staring at the final printer’s proof, hovering to type ‘approved’ but you’re stuck in inertia, through the blind panic that somewhere within it says ‘shirt’ not ‘short’. The word isn’t spelled incorrectly and you’ve glanced over it so many times you can’t see it anymore.

    I always ask for a fresh pair of eyes (yuck, that phrase still creeps me out) but sometimes something slips through. My terror comes after it’s gone to print – where is that error??

    Does anyone else have this and how do you deal with it?

    Kate

  10. I can relate to all of these fears, another one that I regularly have is the fear of grammatical errors or spelling errors in my content. There is nothing worse than making an error, it being found by one of your readers and then it being thrown straight back at you.

  11. As an aspiring I will have a “fear” until I have published my first book on tea! 😉 That is why I have read Joanna Penn’s book on the author’s mind and do the exercises in her workbook.

  12. Hey,

    All these points are totally relatable. I used to write a lot of articles myself in my early days of blogging, and as a writer, I always feared that whether my audience will like my writing style and tone or not.

    Until I got some positive feedbacks, I would always worry about it.

    Thanks.

  13. I am very bad at using transition words and providing passive voice to the content. Can anyone help me with it? Do you know any software, to do this work?

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