You Won’t Know If You Can Write Your Story Until You Try
Why caring deeply about your story doesn’t mean you’ll ruin it—and what to do when fear keeps you frozen.
You have a story idea that’s been with you for a while. You love it.
It matters to you more than anything else you’ve ever wanted to write. It’s, like, stuck in your soul important. You think about it constantly. You write scenes in your head. You know all the twists and turns, your characters are properly motivated, and you definitely know that surprising twist that’s going to happen toward the end. The one that will cause the story to race toward The End.
You’re excited about it. You talk about it, and people tell you, “I want to read this!”
How’s that for a friend making you get all up in your head? “I want to read this” is simultaneously and singularly the most coveted and most terrifying thing anyone can say to a writer (in my opinion). It puts the pressure on, right? And now that friend knows you’re writing it, and they’ll pester you about it. So, maybe it’s just better to hide your writing life away and not talk about it ever to anyone.
NO!
Get out of your head!
But this is how it goes. We spiral, right? We overthink. We start to doubt. And we never start actually writing the idea.
Or if you have started, you haven’t yet been able to take it all the way to The End, because you keep stopping or stalling out in some way like by revising every sentence before moving on (it’s safer to edit what’s already there than to face writing forward onto a blank page).
Or you haven’t gotten past the first few pages, and if you do, you lose momentum and get lost in the swamp of the murky middle (where Artax… *sob* too soon. Forever too soon).
Maybe, out of guilt or some sort of writerly shame or even just avoidance for the sake of avoidance, you stop writing altogether.
Not because you don’t have the skill or talent, and definitely not because you don’t love the story (you do love this story. There’s no doubt about it).
Somewhere deep inside, you have a little voice asking you, “What makes you think you have any right to tell this story?”
That’s a little harsh… but I’ve heard it from my clients before.
Maybe something a little softer… What if you’re not the right person to tell this story?”
What if you can’t do it justice? (Oh girl, have I been there done that! I think I have a collection of t-shirts even).
What if someone else, someone more talented, more experienced, more worthy, would do it better and probably already has done it better? (this happens a lot… but it’s what YOU bring to the story that makes it original. Remember that).
Oh how about this one, what if you actually do do it justice? Fear of success is a thing. What if you do it justice… now you have to hand it over to your friend who wanted to read it… what if they don’t like it? What if they don’t think you did it justice?
Let’s go live in a cave and never worry about this ever again. I’ll bring the snacks.
No… that’s not how this works. It’s time to face the music my friend!
If any ounce of this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. And the fact that you keep coming back and trying again? That speaks volumes.
It means you have the passion to make this story a reality. To see it through to The End. To do it justice. Or at least to try again and again.
Writing advice doesn’t always talk about the fire and passion we carry inside ourselves, nor that this is what will keep us excited on our good writing days, and keep us showing up even on the bad ones.
A lot of writing advice focuses on structure and plot, on rules and formulas. Just follow these steps, put in these plot points, have your inciting incident fall at the 10, 15, 25% mark! Don’t forget about your dark night of the soul and the denouement (which I always pronounce the way I think it should be pronounced and the other way so I don’t sound so pretentious, like when I talk about sommeliers with the French pronunciation. Don’t judge me!).
What was I talking about? Right… writing advice…
There is plenty of advice out there for mindset help and overcoming self-doubt. I’m not here to pretend I’m the first book coach or creative catalyst that will tell you how to overcome the negative inner voice. I definitely won’t tell you there are ways to banish it completely (there aren’t; even best selling authors grapple with self-doubt and impostor syndrome, and are paralyzed by getting things wrong).
What I’m here to tell you is, the immense care and love and obsession you have with your story is what matters. And I am here to teach you how to use that fire inside of you, that longing, that certain je ne sais quoi to start writing not because your friend wants you to write your book so they can read it, but because you can’t not write your book.
The thing is, there’s no way to do it wrong. And you won’t know you’re doing it wrong if you never even start to try to do it right in the first place.
In this post, you’ll learn three heart-first and powerful strategies to help you move through the fear that you’re not “enough,” or that you’ll ruin the story or not do it justice, and begin to believe that maybe, just maybe, you’re exactly the person this story needs. The exact right writer to write it. Lol.
These are the same steps I guide writers through inside The Story Compass, my signature workbook designed to help you reconnect with your story and finally start writing from a place of trust instead of fear.
Ready? Let’s do this thang!
1. Remember why this story matters to you
There was a time in your life when the first inklings of this idea slithered into your mind like a snake with a master plan but no arms to carry it. It whispered to you in the shower, or on a hike through nature, or while elbows deep in delivering a breech calf.
Remember that? It lit you up! You were so excited, you wrote it down. Even if it was a snippet, like “She sleeps with the devil Zhu until mystery comes calling.” 👈(Literally something I woke up with in my head and wrote down in my bedside notebook).
You wrote the idea down and started to explore it, and the more you explored it, the more excited you got. Characters popped into your head, full scenes, conversations! (That OR, you started to doubt the idea immediately and put it away, but that’s a whole other article). The fact is, you approached it with creative abandon and your excitement carried the torch.
So, your first step is to simply remember that moment, that time, or that incident in which this story became yours. Where were you? What were you doing? Who were you with? What do you think inspired it? Where do you think it came from? Why does this story speak to you? What still excites you about it? What part of YOU is tied to this story?
There’s a reason this story came to you and not anyone else.
The more you understand what you need from it, the more clearly you’ll see that you are the right person to write it.
Inside The Story Compass, this is where we start.
You’ll explore the emotional core of your story and articulate your Why. Not in a way that sounds good on paper and satisfies the requirement of the exercise, but in a way that feels like home in your chest.
2. Redefine what it means to be ready and good enough.
Here’s something you might need to hear, that I truly believe, you don’t have to become the writer your story needs, you already are the writer your story needs.
Got that?
This story idea came to you because it believed in you. So now? It’s time to believe in yourself. To prove to yourself you are the writer to write this story.
You do that by redefining what it means to be ready, qualified, good enough, worthy, and any other fear language that’s creeped into your mind and keeping you from writing the book you’re meant to write.
Because caring about this story, and caring about whether you can do it justice or not, means your heart is there. It’s time to write to prove the words are there, too.
Caring about your story doesn’t require perfection. It doesn’t even require a fully shaped story yet. It just requires permission.
Permission to start messy. To start without all the answers.
To write poorly. Permission to suck, right? Suck it up buttercup! There’s no such thing as a perfect first draft! Even those writers who do write damn near perfect first drafts did a lot of editing and tinkering with their words before calling it done.
And most importantly, permission to discover the story as you go. To follow your creativity down every twist and turn. To try out different scenes and endings. Your first draft is there for the dam to break and the creative juices to wash over you and the little town at the bottom of the valley that’ll never be the same again. It’ll be better!
Inside The Story Compass, I help you map out what you already know, what’s still a mystery, and what lights you up.
Because when you’re grounded in what excites you, and not what you should know, you unlock the confidence to move forward.
3. Prove to Yourself You’re Exactly Who This Story Needs
The only way to believe you can write this story… is to start writing it.
Start small. 20 minutes. One sentence. One word even.
As Vincent Van Gough said:
“If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”
In your case?
Write. And that voice will be silenced.
When you act in spite of the doubts swirling through your mind, your belief in yourself and your story will grow. Each tiny action you take, each day you show up, each word you put after the next, builds confidence. Your creativity will see you and start to show up, too, and you’ll be amazed at what comes pouring out.
Will every day be a fiesta from your fingertips? No. But it doesn’t matter, because you’re doing the thing. You’re writing your book.
And slowly, sentence by sentence, you begin to trust yourself. Your confidence grows. Your story becomes something you never even dreamed could come from your mind, because not only are you doing it justice, you’re doing it better than you ever imagined.
You’ll smile with pride at this accomplishment. You’ve done it!
I know what you’re thinking…
But what if I start and it’s terrible? What if it proves I really can’t do this?
Here’s the truth:
You won’t know until you try.
And even then? “Terrible” just means you’re in progress. Not unworthy. Not “not doing it justice.” You’re learning. You’re learning through doing, and that is what makes a real writer a Real Writer.
Your story doesn’t need a perfect writer.
It needs a brave one.
It needs you.
So, my brave writing friend, do you have what it takes to write this story? Here are your next steps:
- First, connect back to the real reason this story calls to you. That original spark that lit you up.
- Second, redefine what it means to be “ready” and “good enough.”
- Third, take tiny actions. One sentence at a time. 20 minutes per day.
You don’t have to earn the right to write this story.
You already have it.
You already are the writer your story needs. It’s time to prove it.
That’s exactly what The Story Compass is designed to help you do.
It walks you through the parts of your story that prove this book is meant to be written…by you.
You’ll leave with clarity, direction, and a deep, renewed belief in yourself.
