- Get over yourself. Everyone is more worried about themselves & their own writing.
- Let yourself be shit.
- Let yourself be embarrassed.
- Let yourself be imperfect.
- Let your writing be shit, embarrassing, and imperfect. Life is all of these things.
- You get to the good stuff after you spend time shovelling though the ‘bad’.
- No writing is ‘bad writing’. It all helps you get to where you need to go. It helps unclog the mind. It helps you understand the world better. It helps you practice your craft. It helps you make sense of your thoughts. It helps you come up with ideas. It directs you towards a story. It helps you learn to sit with yourself. It helps you question your view of the world. It helps you feel connected to the world. It helps you remember things. It helps you find your own authentic voice. All writing helps you.
- Get off your high horse. Writing shouldn’t only be valid when it’s published. Everyone has a story within them. Everyone is entitled to write! The same way that yoga isn’t limited to people who can stand on their head and do the splits. It’s there to be used for everyone for different reasons.
- Who cares if you made a spelling mistake. If it’s not grammatically correct. Stop criticizing and keeping tabs of yourself and others. Just keep on living. Keep on writing.
- Reading all the great authors, knowing the longest words, having degrees in writing doesn’t make you a ‘good writer’. “It ain’t about how much you’ve got, honey, it’s how you use it.”
- Reading AND listening improves your writing. Rather than studying the dictionary, trust that you are learning the flow of creative writing though reading a range of books. You are improving your ability to write through listening to conversations. How someone speaks, the way they are triggered, the words they use and don’t use.
- Paying attention to the world around you is just as effective as reading. You can only learn so much in a textbook and in a creative writing class. You could spend hours debating a literary text, to learn that both you and your classmate are allowed to have your own subjective view of the world. You both perceive the world in different ways. Embrace this. It is what makes a story interesting. Stop trying to be the same and blend in. Instead, lean into: what do you see in the world?
- Write from your heart, not just from your head. Allow yourself to get your emotions on page. As messy, as wild and as terrifying as they are. Just see what comes out.
- You are not in competition with anyone. Focus on yourself and your writing. It’s okay to celebrate yourself and your writing. It’s okay to celebrate other people and their writing. This doesn’t mean anything about you or anything about them. It just means you believe everyone deserves to be celebrated! Life is tough enough as it is. Enjoy it, and anyone who doesn’t want to join the celebration will leave the party. Let them leave. More cake for you!
- Stop waiting for everyone to tell you that your writing is okay. That you are okay. Not everyone will get you and not everyone will get your writing. That is okay. You do not like every book or every poem you read. You do not click with every person you meet. Keep writing and reading anyway. Once your writing feels true to you, it will feel true to someone else.
- Stop talking about it. Stop thinking about it. Just sit down, open the page, and write it.
A Good Kind of Scary 