What Scares Me About Writing?
Last week I completed a milestone in my life. A milestone about which I only dreamt of in my wildest dreams. A milestone that I thought would be impossible to achieve. I published my FIRST EVER ARTICLE on Medium. I still get goosebumps reading that sentence!! I never thought I would be saying those words. Seeing the world on the other side of the ‘publish’ button was surreal. After all that I went through mentally, this achievement right here means the world to me.
Though I wrote my article last week, the idea of writing one was in a simmer state for about 5–6 years. It all started when I was in the first year of my undergraduate degree(back in 2014) at the Institute of Aeronautical Engineering, shortly referred to as IARE, a local college in Telangana, India, where I was pursuing my Bachelors of Technology in Aeronautical Engineering.
I was an introvert (still am to some extent). I was never good at expressing myself to others. I get all worked up and anxious talking to people (even my friends). Naturally, I took to reading, which until then was mostly limited to my textbooks and notebooks. One of the very first books that I read was Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl. For whatever reason, I had this strong urge to document my perspective on it. After finishing reading the book, when it was time to write about it, the inner demons kicked in.
Questions like — Why are you even reading this? Why are you wasting your time writing and thinking about it? Don’t you have other work/homework to do? so on and so forth, started to torment me. Why, you ask? It was the way I was brought up, I guess. From where I come from, reading and writing (other than your textbooks/notebooks) were considered a waste of time. It was solely dedicated to people in leisure or people who are wealthy and successful, and I am definitely not both of them. Succumbing to this pressure, I dropped it immediately.
Fast forward to 2019, I was staying with my family in Telangana, India, during lockdown 1.0, as my university ordered me to go home due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 Pandemic. To keep active during the lockdown, I started reading mainly non-fiction and biographies, listening to podcasts, and so on, just so that I can be motivated and inspired during the pandemic. It was from these I took the idea to write online.
The idea of writing online unleashed a new set of fears in me like — What the hell am I going to write about? Why would anybody read what I have to say? Surely when my friends and family come to know that I write online, they’ll definitely make fun of me and think that I am a terrible person. I was not scared of writing or anything, but it was more profound questions like — How would a writer writes his/her/their article? or even How would an artist create his/her/their art? baffled me to the core.
Beyond these, there are the ‘what if’ questions like — What if my article/essay sucks? What if my grammar and punctuation were terrible? What if nobody reads my article? What if I get rejected by the publication? Moreover, I was stuck on producing original and perfect content, leading me to questions like — What if my article was not original and not perfect? Because in this day and age, anything you wanted to write about is already written in one or the other form, be it blog posts, YouTube videos, podcasts, etc., with great images/visuals and excellently written essays/scripts. Who am I to write about any of this? I am not an expert, Am I?
These fears and questions had stopped me from writing altogether. Personally, as a beginner, I feel all these questions are valid, and people who write should have definitely ask themselves these questions at some point in their writing life. It shows to some extent that one actually cares for writing. The two questions that I was worried about the most and how I mitigated those issues are given in the following two paragraphs:
The first question was, Should you be an expert in any particular field before writing in that field? My answer is more of a NO than a YES. For sure, as a beginner, writing in any field is a daunting and intimidating task. And, in my opinion, it is the most fun part too. You see, writing is about sharing your process. It is about documenting how you learn stuff. And when you write and hit that publish button, the robots on the internet would do their thing, and just like that, your work is shared with people all over the world.
Somebody may be read it and learn new things from it. That somebody might also comment on your post about their journey. Soon, you may collaborate with that somebody someday. It’s like when a teacher gives you homework to do, you may struggle initially and find it to be really hard, but when you collaborate with your friends and colleagues, the same assignment seems easy and fun.
Another question in the same lines would be, Should you be worried about your friends and family who might judge you for writing online? My answer is a big NO. Let me explain to you with an example, say, a friend of yours for their birthday was gifted a new guitar and is now learning how to play it. During this process, he documents the way he learns it and once a week makes a small video and uploads it on YouTube. Do you think you will judge your friend for doing this? No right!! Then why do you think others will judge you and make fun of you when you write online? THINK, THINK, THINK!!!
So please mitigate your fears and start publishing. And do let me know if this feels relatable to you.
Happy Writing!!!
