I’ve never had a kid, but I imagine sending out a piece of my writing into the world is a lot like dropping your child off for their first day of school.
In short, it’s utterly terrifying.
You’ve done everything you can to make sure they’re prepared, but what if it’s not enough? What if everyone makes fun of them?
In writing, that often translates to a reflection on you as the writer. What if everyone thinks I’m not enough? And laughs at me for thinking I can write?
I touched on this topic a little in my newsletter last month, but now I want to talk a bit about why it’s actually a good thing that you feel so scared to share your writing.
It means you care about your writing
If you don’t care about your writing, no one else will. That’s just how it works. You have to be your first fan. Not that you can’t have doubts or anxiety, but you have to care enough to write your story, or it simply won’t happen. How many people do you talk to who say, “Oh, I’d like to write a book—someday.” For most of them, that ‘someday’ means ‘never’ because they don’t care enough to do it. Which is fine! There are (hopefully) other things they just care about more.
When you share your writing and it scares you, it’s because you care about it. You want people to like it. You wouldn’t feel so scared if it wasn’t something that mattered to you. Then you could laugh at it and treat it like a joke, whether people love it or hate it. But that pit of anxiety that opens up whenever someone asks to read your latest story—it may not feel great, but it’s actually good, because it shows just how much your writing means to you.
It means you’ve put a piece of yourself in your writing
Think about writing a paper for school. Typically, you’re doing it because someone else told you to, and it’s about a topic unrelated to you personally. Presumably you have some 
investment in it because you want a good grade, but, most of the time, you probably don’t feel that overwhelming sense of vulnerability that makes sharing creative writing so scary. That’s because it doesn’t feel like sharing a piece of you—it’s just an assignment you’re required to write about a predetermined topic.
But the thing that gives your writing that spark is when a part of you is on the page. Whether it’s using your own life experiences or writing about a topic you care about or creating a character you love, your fingerprints are all over the writing you do because you want to. That’s what brings it to life! But it also means that when you share it, it feels like asking other people to judge you and give feedback on you. Even though that’s not what they’re doing! But feeling scared like that means you’ve put your heart into your writing, and that’s exactly what needs to happen if other people are going to care about your story the way you do.
Of course, even though these things are true, it doesn’t mean that you’ll always get the feedback you’re hoping for. We can care about our writing and embed a piece of ourselves into it, and it can still need work. But being scared doesn’t make you a bad writer. Often, it means you’re doing something exactly right. So don’t let that fear stop you from sharing your writing, because that’s how we improve.
How do you deal with feeling scared to share your writing? Let me know in the comments!
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Featured image by Nick Morrison
Sending your work out to beta readers is exactly like sending your child off to school, and I should know, I have two children. It’s because it’s so deeply personal and we put so much of ourselves into writing that handing over to someone else makes us feel very vulnerable. Thank you for a great post, I can certainly relate to it. The feedback process is tough but I have found it immensely helpful.
Exactly! It’s so vulnerable, but also so important! Glad you enjoyed the post ❤