On the Fear of Publishing
If you’re like me, then you’ve got to understand one main thing when it comes to writing. You don’t publish your thoughts because you’re afraid. It’s not because you’re lazy, too busy, not creative enough, or enjoy the denouement of procrastination — that final scene where your adrenaline kicks in and a Hans Zimmer movie score crescendos in Dolby Surround Sound (in your mind), as inspiration suddenly strikes and you begin to insanely peck away at your keyboard. Your fear is what holds you back. Instead, it keeps your mind hostage. “This is a stickup!” And boy, is it stuck.
Stop Trying to Impress
So how do you get unstuck? I must say I hate writing yet another “how-to” piece on overcoming your fear of writing. So whatever I say next has to be novel and unique, right? After all, this isn’t the first how-to you’ve read on getting unstuck. But, alas, that’s the problem. The issue lies within my third sentence of this very paragraph. You think that to write and publish something that it must be so utterly unique and compelling that someone would forward it to an editor who would then scour the internet to find your contact information and then offer to publish your next best-selling piece.
That, my friend, is the challenge. So here are my non-unique and simple word of advice: Stop trying to impress your readers.
Start Making an Impression — Literally
Do you know what it’s like trying to have a conversation with someone who has a business card in hand, their perfect sales voice with the right intonations and that immaculately phosphorescent smile? They come off as someone who tries too hard. Not fake, but unintentionally porcelain. So how do you stop trying to impress and start making an impression? By applying pressure. In this case, the literal pressure is your keyboard, and the symbolic pressure is the thought you want to convey. Push it. Poke it. Prod and squeeze it. Then type it. Be curious and explore your topic a little. And then start jotting down those thoughts. Then explore a bit more and write a bit more. And then apply the ultimate pressure — hit the “Publish” button. Press that button with conviction! Poke, prod, produce, and publish.
Poke, Prod, Produce, and Publish
Poking is different from prodding. Poking is observational. Prodding is experimental. It’s a series of pokes to test questions, opinions, and theories. Some of us stop at the poking level. We find something interesting, but we fail to ask the probing questions that would challenge us to go a little deeper. We failed to prod.
Some of us stop at the prodding level. After a cursory look at the idea, event, or issue, we ask a few questions that enable us to go deeper. And when we’ve compiled our findings, we abandon the process with a twisted satisfaction. We leave knowing more than we did before but failed to write it out. It’s no short of navel-gazing. We failed to produce.
Many of us stop at the production level. We’ve asked compelling questions, tested our hypotheses, or the suppositions of others, and we’ve created a well-polished piece. Often, it’s too polished. And that’s because we obsessively edited the work repeatedly, trying to get it just right. But, alas, we never share it with the world. We failed to publish.
Publishing dares you to do a couple of things. It challenges you to let go of your darling idea. You have to release it into the wild to face criticism, or far worse, never to be read by anyone at all. Publishing also confronts you with a choice: Stop or Start Over.
There are so many specific step-by-step techniques and tactics out there to begin writing and publishing. This article isn’t one of them. I simply want to encourage you to start. And then start again. Keep hitting the publish button. Be a writer. A person who never publishes is not a writer — they have only a private journal. Alas, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
