It never fails. Despite your best intentions and significant evidence to the contrary, you sit down to write, and negative thoughts encroach on your mind. Where does the insidious self-doubt come from? I’m afraid you might have encountered the same questions that plague me.

• What if this doesn’t work?
• What if I can’t find the words?
• What if I write a cardboard character?
• What if I make wrong decisions?
• What if I can’t do justice to the vision in my head?
• What if I have plot holes the size of Texas?
• What if they hate it?
• What if I hate it?
• What if I’m a crappy writer?
• What if it turns out terrible?

And we spiral into a pit of imagined scenarios. At the bottom, we smother our creativity under a thick blanket of imposter syndrome, and our daemons urge us to walk away. You are much safer eating a gallon of cookie dough ice cream and binge-watching the latest must-see tv series. Aren’t we?

But wait a minute — what if it turns out fine? Maybe I can write one sentence. Yes, maybe everything will turn out fine.

Did you write yesterday? Are you writing today?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer