Hello, I am a chained prisoner of my own perfectionism. I signed up to this forum, primarily because I am looking for assistance... or relation... or maybe even to be told I'm wrong. I don't know, you read and decide. When I don't overthink it, when I'm not worried about how my writing will turn out, words come easy to me. I have written a few things - mostly poetry, maybe a story or two as well - over the last several years. Writing has always been one of my interests, though I tend to forego it a lot of the time and thus not practice it often. My main troubles with it are as follows: 1. Knowledge and the fear of critique. I have had many story ideas that never came to fruition because I feared to write said story because I didn't know everything about every aspect of the world and would therefore be critiqued for "not knowing what I was talking about". Example: I wanted to write a sort of fictional story who's characters were 3 relatively unlikely companions - an annoying hamster, a lazy cat, and a boisterous dragon who, though the fire breathing minnis he is, is really nothing more than a gentle giant - unless those he cares about are threatened. I developed those characters far beyond what I posted here, but stopped with the idea after I feared that my idea would be put down because: a. Dragon, Cat, Hamster? What the hell dude? b. My depictions of the characters' behaviors, appearances, and other stereotypes would not be correct according to how they are dictated in legend in case of the dragon, and real life in case of the cat and hamster. I'd go on, but this is probably tl-dr anyway. I think you get the idea though - the one thing that truly prevents me from writing short stories and such on the whim is the fact that I fear that I'll do it wrong. I'll come off as though I don't know what I'm talking about, even if I think I do, and it'll ruin the story because of that. Can I please have some tips to help with this? Does anyone else suffer from this problem?
Welcome! I think most writers have self doubt and overthink most things. To being I'd suggest to stop caring too much! I know it's not as easy as it's sounds, but you've got to start somewhere. To get a story out there you need to write. If you worry about the writing too much - you'll end up not writing. People debate if writers block is a thing or not - but in my view the writers block is when you want to write but you're too afraid for one or another reason and your mind just shuts down whenever you're trying. Am I getting off track? Oh well... Anyway - is your story about the hamster, cat and dragon a great idea? I haven't got a clue - but if that's what you want to write, write it! Will it ever get published? Hell if I know - but if you're having trouble producing anything right now because you worry or overthink - just write that story. Or any story. Just write. Write, write, write. Get it all out there, and worry about the results later! I don't have any great ideas at the moment - but I love to write and I feel better doing it. So I write silly things to myself and only myself to keep myself busy.
Hello! I just wanted to let you know that you are most definitely not alone. I have many of the same insecurities that you mentioned. Sadly, I don't have any answers on how to overcome any these issues, but I am hoping to find help in here as well. Good luck! I hope you find all the answers you're looking for.
I've used the metaphor of piano practice before. When you set yourself to learn an instrument, you don't sit down with the terror that the first thing you play might not be good enough to record and release under a major record label. You accept that you're going to create imperfect music, hundreds and hundreds and no doubt thousands of hours of it, as you learn to play. To become a writer, you have to practice writing. You will very likely write many, many not-good words of writing. That's the price that you pay to travel the path toward eventually writing well.
Thank you guys for the insight and support. One of the main reasons I am just now writing this topic, (I actually kind of pannicked and searched up "Creative writing forum" and found this place), is because I have enrolled in a creative writing class this semester and the teacher had us writing right away... - today was our first "story". I have to write a 1000 word story which, isn't that long, but hey. When you're scared... it kind of is. Also to the poster who compared it to piano practice, I can fully relate to that since I am actually and have been learning piano for about a year now, and even today I make mistakes that I made at the very beginning, at which point I have to calm the knee jerk frustration and remind myself that it's all a trial and error process. I suppose then that the smart thing to do would be to get over my numerous fears and possibly quit thinking about everything negative that could go wrong?
