: Any suggestions for a new writer? I am in no way a writer. It's something I've always wanted to do, but could never build up the courage to actually start. Every time I think about writing,

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This sounds like a classic case of Imposter Syndrome. At Thanet Creative Writers (a local community of writers I started where I live) I noticed that this seems to be a problem for many beginner writers.

The only consistent solution has been to actually start writing and not worry about the outcome. Without fail, anything you wrote will seem poor when compared with anything else you wrote more recently. That just seems to be a fact of life.

In terms of an indicator of raw skill, this self-doubt (sometimes named the Inner Critic) seems to be largely positive. It stems, as far as I can tell, from an awareness of what you do not know. That awareness stops you thinking that you are the best writer since Shakespeare and thus allows you to develop your skills.

It is not a universal rule by any stretch of the imagination, but there does seem to be something like an inverse correlation between ability and self-confidence when it comes to writing.

In general:

Don't compare yourself to other writers
Silence the Inner Critic
Don't try to produce perfection as perfection is a myth
Write first, edit later
You are a writer if you write

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What I learned is that the writing process is something very subjective and what can work for me could not work for you and viceversa.

However, the most important thing (especially if you are a beginner) is to shut down your inner critic.

You should write without questioning how good can be. Just let it flow.
You have to discover your voice and your style.

You can't expect to have a gold bar if you are not ready to get your hands dirty collecting the nuggets.

There's a time to write and there's a time to judge ;) don't mix them up.

P.S. Good Luck!

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You're letting the perfect become the enemy of the good.

Let's be blunt: your initial efforts will suck. That's because every writer's initial efforts suck. Stephen King? Sucked. JK Rowling? Sucked. Octavia Butler? Sucked. Shakespeare? Suckethed.

Your goal is not to write something perfect. Your goal is to get it down on paper. Once it's on paper, then you can edit it, repeatedly, until it doesn't suck. But you cannot edit a blank page.

So go ahead and get your stories out of your head. You don't have to show them to anyone. The grammar can be terrible, you can have lots of "TK he gets from here to there," your characters can all be Mary Sues, it doesn't matter.

Write. Just write for the sheer joy of writing.

Later, you can go back and make it better. Later, you can go ask for help from beta readers and editors and learn how to make it better. You can learn how to make the end result great.

But there's no end result if there's no beginning. Go forth and write without worry or shame.

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