Are You A Worrier?

 Writers never worry. Right? No, that's all wrong. Writers do worry. A lot! 

What do they worry about? Look at this list and you'll probably be nodding your head if some of them hit home. 

We worry that: 

• we will never be a published author
• we cannot measure up to professionals
• we aren't up to writing with proper mechanics
• other writers far surpass our abilities
• we aren't growing as a writer
• we don't get enough emotion in what we write
• we don't hook our readers immediately
• we aren't able to write a full novel
• we don't have enough time to write as much as we'd like to
• our vocabulary is not up to that of other writers
• editors will hate our submissions
• we aren't very good at revising and editing our first drafts

The list could go on and on but you get the idea. All those worries are definitely a waste of time. Writers have a lot of doubt and insecurity, especially in the beginning stage of the writing journey. Even those who have published a lot have some of the same doubts. You can probably add to this list with other parts of the writing life that you worry about.

I love this quote. It is so true. Worry gets us nowhere fast. It is a total waste of time. Instead of worrying, we need to step back and take a long, hard look at all the problems in the list above. Tackle them one at a time. Don't attempt to do it all at once. If you do, you will do more than worry. You might have a total meltdown. In all of our writing life, we need to tackle problems a little here, a little there. We can't climb Mt Everest in one day and we can't solve all these problems in one day either.

Push the worry bird out the door and keep moving on your writing path. Continue working on the positive things you've done and tackle those 'worrisome' things one at a time.