By Karen Barnett
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“I admire anybody who has the guts to write anything at all.”
~ E. B. White ~
Many of us begin our writing journey with a wild sense of anticipation. Like Bilbo in The Hobbit, we run down the path waving our first pages, shouting: “I’m going on an adventure!”
But also, like Bilbo, we can trip over our furry feet and end up paralyzed by fear.
What if I’m no good?
What if everyone hates my writing?
What if I put in all this time and effort and never get published?
Would it surprise you to learn that even multi-published authors deal with this? After publishing nine books, I still find myself frozen by doubt more often than I care to admit.
Fear manifests in many ways for writers—procrastination, perfectionism, comparing ourselves with others, never hitting SEND, and even walking away from our calling altogether.
So how do we shut off the negative voices in our heads?
First, steep yourself in the Word. Whenever I find a verse that I feel speaks to the writer’s life, I add it to a growing list near my computer. One of my favorites is Psalm 139:4–5 (NLT):
You know what I am going to say [WRITE]
even before I say it, Lord.
You go before me and follow me.
You place your hand of blessing on my head.
Second, remember to pray—every time you open your manuscript and when you close it. Ask friends and family to join you. We also have a prayer team here at CCW that would love to pray for you. No evil can stand against the power of God!
Finally, there are many nuts-and-bolts techniques you can experiment with to help get those words flowing. My favorites include the Pomodoro Technique (setting a 25-minute timer), doing online writing sprints alongside other writers, drafting longhand occasionally, rewards, and writing in coffee shops or libraries.
I’d love to hear some of your favorite techniques! I hope you’ll join me at CCW’s Fall Conference. We’ll take a deep dive into this topic during my workshop “At a Loss for Words: What’s Keeping You from Writing.”
Karen Barnett is the award-winning author of nine novels, including Where Trees Touch the Sky and When Stone Wings Fly and The Vintage National Park novels. Before becoming a writer, she worked as a park ranger and naturalist at Mount Rainier National Park and Oregon’s Silver Falls State Park.
Karen will teach two workshops at the upcoming Cascade Christian Writers (CCW) Fall Conference, October 12, in Tualatin, OR. Her workshops are: “At a Loss for Words: What’s Keeping You from Writing” and “Selfies to Shelfies: Taking Better Photos for Social Media.” For more information about the conference schedule, workshops, and the opportunity to meet with a literary agent, visit our conference page.
