What If Newbie Writers Stop Writing

Because they think they are not good enough

One of my writing buddies had a rant last week when she was due to submit an assignment. Why the hell am I putting myself through this? She lamented. Who cares about my story? What difference does it make if I write this story? Or any story for that matter? I am such a crappy writer anyway.

I could feel her pain. I have asked myself the same questions several times. So many times, I wanted to give writing up. Writing is an ordeal even for experienced and bestselling writers. New writers have very little chance of making a name for themselves, let alone earn an income from it.

Sure the world will not come to a standstill. No one will miss us because we haven’t been ‘discovered’ yet. Hardly anyone reads our blog articles, and our short stories and novels are still buried in our computers. If we stop writing now, the world will be spared of the rubbish we create, and we will be spared the daily agony and can get on with our lives just like ‘normal’ people.

Except for one thing.

The problem with giving up is that it is such a knee-jerk response. When things get difficult, our first instinct is our physiological mechanism to protect us from danger and undue hardship.

We tend to forget that our inbuilt physiology gives us three choices — freeze, flee, or fight even at a time of grave danger. Most of the time, we choose to freeze (inaction) or flee (run away).

We rarely opt for the fight. We tend to think the enemy is too big and too strong, and the best chance we have of survival is to flee from it.

Have a read of these three stories.

1. Carl Friedrich Gauss was born in Germany to poor, working-class parents. He didn’t know his birthday. His mother was illiterate and never recorded his birth date, remembering that he had been born on a Wednesday, eight days before the Feast of the Ascension (which occurs 39 days after Easter).

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