Blogging fears: I can’t write

It’s the new year and this year you’ve decided to blog. You’ve set up your site, added a header, followed all the instructions in a blogging guide and now you are hesitant. You have to write something but the words won’t come.  you’ve looked over the tips for writer’s block; you’ve been for a walk, you’ve taken a bath and you’ve read the newspaper, but you still can’t write and press publish. 

Your inner dragons are telling you not to post something as the site needs a new plugin to make it perfect and your partner is saying how proud of you they are and when can they read something? You don’t have writer’s block and you know you don’t need plugins to make your blog better, you know in your heart what the problem is.

But you still don’t write and hit publish.

It’s not that you don’t want to write it’s just that you think you can’t. You read the big blogs where writers tell you you have to have pretty sentences and orderly paragraphs. Occasionally you dare over to site that helps readers with their grammar issues. But even after the help and advice you’ve read, you still tremble at the thought of putting fingers to keyboard and typing a post.

Writing is big business. From copywriters to journalists, writing is a way of communicating ideas and writers can be some of the most harsh people on the planet, but it’s okay in their opinion to leave you and your blogging dreams crushed. I’m here to tell you its not and that it’s time to stop worrying about your writing.

Have you heard of Erica Leonard? Perhaps by her pen name, E.L James? Erica wrote 3 controversial books where the readers loved or hated it. She’s now worth $10 million and loves in a beautiful house in central London. She wrote from her heart, and her audience grew. Every day she sells thousands of books via Kindle and print. Every day someone posts about how poorly written the book is. She started out blogging the story of Ana and Christian and slowly it grew into a book. A book that millions have read and millions more groused about.

If you read a lot of writing blogs you’ll  know that a misplaced apostrophe is the end of the world and poor grammar will cause a kitten to die somewhere in the world. You may have a post typed and ready to publish but you don’t know how to spellcheck and everyone will know your deepest fears as soon as you hit publish. Everyone will see your mistakes and think you are an idiot.You may have heard of Eben Pagan, you may be on his list. You’ll have probably seen on of his apostrophe free emails. He also earns in the region of $10 million a year.  Sure writing is important but not as important as the story or the message.

Why am I sharing this with you? Because E.L James and Eben Pagan do not let the writing part get in the way being heard. They do not let their fear  take over, they let the writer free to construct blog posts and emails and they don’t give a hoot what other people say in public. Okay, that may not be entirely true. I have no idea if E.L  James sobs herself to sleep at night over what’s criticized by the writing/publishing community. I sincerely hope she doesn’t, after all she goes to sleep every night with Christian Grey .

Writers are not the only creatives out there and they don’t rule the world despite what they may think If they did where do you think 50 Shades of Grey would be?

What can you do about poor writing?

• Write more. You will only get better with experience. Write more.
• Take a leaf from Jon Goodman’s blog – link, scroll till you see the big purple box… feel better now? Asking for help is not a sin.
• Read more. Read what’s deemed good writing. Read bad writing. You can learn the difference.
• Write the old school way. Remember lines? The after school punishment where you had to write the same thing over and over again? Find some great writing you love and write it over and over and over again.
• Write until your fingers bleed and the flows of the words is seared into your brain.
• Get some software something like Grammarly or White Smoke. No software is perfect but if it boosts your confidence and irons out a few of the wrinkles then it’s worth while.
• Get a thicker skin. Learn the difference between helpful advice so you can get it right and bitter writers sniping until they can have their morning vodka- tonic to recover from their own perceived failures.
• Learn to write an outline for your posts, where you can follow the pointers and tell your story.
• Take a writing class, online/ offline, wherever. You’ll meet other people just like you, some better / some worse.
• What you don’t know… ask. If you don’t know how to use spellcheck then ask someone. Don’t know if a comma is needed then ask someone.
• You only get better by doing, so go and do it.

If I had let my poor writing hinder me you wouldn’t be reading this now. My husband’s business would have closed and I’d be living in trailer park somewhere. I’m still not the world’s best writer and that isn’t my goal. But I show up and I post often. Each week that post teaches me something I didn’t know about writing. They’re lessons I’m willing to learn because the alternative is to curl up and die a slow death where my dreams and ambitions are stifled and suffocated. I won’t allow that to happen and you don’t have to either.

Make this the year you publish your words, and publish often. Do not allow the fear of writing / other writers drag you down.