You see it.

Row after row of book after book, perfectly flush against mahogany shelves.

You reach for one.

Then stop.

Because suddenly, you’re thinking about your own manuscript.

It’s only five pages…

Mostly misspelled.

And you have no idea how this story is going to come together.

So you wonder:

Was writing a book supposed to feel this hard?

(Tony nods silently.)

Recently, a friend reached out asking for advice on how to overcome doubt as a writer.

So, after some thinking—and as someone who struggled with doubt before, during, and after writing my book, Letters From Jasper—this is what I have to say.

What is writing doubt, anyway?

The best place to start is understanding what doubt actually is.

So let’s define it:

Having doubt as a writer means feeling unsure.

Unsure if you have the skills to write your book.

Unsure if the book will be good.

Unsure if it will even be worth it.

But why do we feel this way?

Well…

One: You’re human.

And feeling doubtful is an all-too-human emotion.

Unless you’re willing to get a lobotomy, of course.

Two: Writers are thinkers.

And doubt is that damn side effect of thinking.

You’re so good at thinking that you can see all the potential outcomes—including the negative ones.

That’s your blessing and your curse.

Three: It doesn’t exist yet.

And that’s kind of the entire point.

You have doubt because you don’t know if the book will be good, if people will like it, or if you can even finish it.

And guess what?

Of course you don’t.

It doesn’t exist yet.

And you or I have no way of knowing the outcome of a hypothetical.

Sorry, Charlie.

The only way to find out what happens is to, well, do it.

So I say all of this to say:

There is no way to completely overcome doubt as a writer.

The only thing you can do is learn to live with it.

And that starts with accepting—truly accepting—that doubt is part of the package.

But I don’t want to sound like the guy who gets off on popping other people’s balloons.

Instead, I want to share what I do whenever I feel overwhelmed by doubt.

For starters, anytime I feel doubt, I make it a point to remind myself:

This is normal.

Expected, even.

And, for me, that has a way of short-circuiting the doubt.

I want to get to the point where doubt feels about as surprising as rain being wet.

Second, I remind myself that I probably shouldn’t love the first few drafts of my work.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that prose improves with time.

Your first draft reads rough?

Probably because it’s a first draft.

It’s supposed to be rough.

If you read Letters From Jasper, you should know that I didn’t realize I needed the entire Hank storyline until about five drafts in.

Five drafts.

The story changed.

The characters changed.

And I changed… I just couldn’t see it at the time.

Because you’re not supposed to ship your first draft.

You’re supposed to cultivate it.

Third, remember that readers never see the early versions.

All those books you see at the bookstore?

Let me tell you, this isn’t what the book first looked like.

It has been edited down to the bones.

Your all-time favorite book?

Keep in mind that, at some point, it was probably a mess.

And the author probably doubted it, too.

So don’t compare someone else’s finished product with the early stages of yours.

That’s not a fair fight.

Fourth, every writer I’ve ever talked to has felt doubt.

It’s not a you thing.

It’s a human thing.

Some writers are just better at hiding it.

But take it from me—I feel doubt, too.

Fifth, beta readers and ARC readers can help.

Doubt will never fully go away.

But if you get enough people to read your work, you’ll start to get a clearer sense of whether something is working.

You’ll also discover something important:

Sometimes the thing you’re worried about isn’t a problem at all.

And sometimes the thing you thought was great needs work.

That feedback can be incredibly useful.

It gives you something doubt can’t:

Information.

And finally, six: You just have to accept it.

It’s part of what it means to be a writer.

We writers write in isolation, and we tend to get stuck in our heads.

We question every sentence.

Every chapter.

Every decision.

And whether we should have started the damn thing in the first place.

But let this remind you:

Doubt is—and always will be—part of the process.

So, to come full circle:

How do you overcome doubt as a writer?

You don’t.

You just learn to live with it.

And it gets easier the more you call it out.

That little voice in your head telling you you’re not good enough?

You don’t have to shut it up.

You just have to learn how to keep writing while it talks.

Please like, comment, share and tell me what you think. Do you agree? For what it’s worth praying over your book is something I do. God is good. 

P.S.  I would love your support. If you enjoy my writing, please check out my book Letters From Jasper.  It’s a funny and sad story about a chaotic roadtrip and father’s final letters force his estranged son to stop running from the truth. Available for FREE on kindle unlimited, hardback or paperback. And if you had read and enjoy, let me know what you think. I’d do a backflip if you left a positive review. Check it out here: Amazon.com: Letters From Jasper eBook : Winn, Anthony: Kindle Store