When I was a kid, I wrote all the time. It was one of my favourite pastimes, along with reading and making toys for the cat (can you tell I was an only child?). I composed stories and silly poems, wistful teenaged diary entries and letters to my cousin detailing my latest school crushes. So many words set down, and yet I never wondered how I did it. Writing was instinctive. If I had something to say, I simply put it on the page for posterity, or to share with others.

Fast forward 23 years, and I’m at the desk ready to begin my first novel, Watercolours. Suddenly, I have no words. I’m sitting, pen poised, blinking in bewilderment. The idea for this book had come to me while travelling in Italy. Aboard trains and ferries, scoffing cannolli, I’d taken feverish notes, already in love with half my characters. I’d returned to Australia with the express purpose of beginning my novel in earnest and now, for some reason, the prose wasn’t flowing onto the page. I had the whole world in my head, but it wouldn’t come out. I was deeply confused. Then I became paralysed with fear.

Why couldn’t I write? And if I wasn’t a writer, who was I?

It took 10 years to complete Watercolours, and even longer to figure out the answers to those questions. Over the next few posts I’ll share what I’ve learned about how important bravery is in the creative process, so that you can set aside your fears and begin writing the story that’s inside you.

Writing is scary because we’re afraid we’re no good at it

We all have a fear of failure and of looking stupid. These are universal vulnerabilities. And yet we also know that we learn far more from our failures than we do from our successes. When we bomb, it’s a hard lesson, but a good one. We need to become more comfortable with experimenting and getting it wrong if we want to improve.

Think about the first time you tried to cook a proper meal (chicken cacciatore, aged 10 – the pot was far too small and the whole tomatoey thing overflowed in the oven). Or the first time you tried to sew something (a doll’s dress that looked no better than a folded rag). Or the first time you attempted a complex dance routine (thankfully we all grew up before Tiktok and no records exist).

I bet you sucked at all these things the first time, too. But wasn’t it fun? And in trying, didn’t you learn something interesting about yourself? (a tendency to skip over important recipe steps, perhaps, or your cavalier approach to hemming?).

As kids, we were crap at everything. We didn’t expect to be good, we just gave it a go. As adults, we need to remember the vital role humility plays in the learning process.

We read more than we write

Like many lonely only children, I read a lot. Books took me on adventures to exotic places and the characters kept me company. They also showed me how to navigate the bizarre world of adults. Naughty Amelia Jane taught me that if you were horrid and selfish, the other toys would turn on you and you’d end up miserable, with your new shoes full of rainwater. Milly Molly Mandy taught me that if you did enough chores around your cottage with the thatched roof, someone in the family would eventually give you a penny to buy a bag of sweets.

For me, writing sprang from my love of reading. I enjoyed playing around with my own stories, imagining what it would be like to be powerful or fearless, to have a different life. At first I drew on the world of books rather than the world around me and so my stories were about fairies and magic cherry trees, quarrelling rabbits and secret formulas invented to bring chaos down upon unfeeling grownups. I didn’t question whether what I was writing was original (it wasn’t) or well-structured or gripping. I was bewildered when a great title and cracking opening paragraph petered out into no story at all. I even made my own imprint, Tealand Books, with a logo of three bluebells drawn in texta, a detail that amused my mother. But to my observant young eye, this was what all proper books had, be they Golden or Puffin or Walker.

A couple of Tealand Books, saved from a flooded storage shed by my heroic mother.

So, why can’t we write like we want to?

Most writers are avid readers. Good books inspire us to want to contribute our voice to the realm and we hold our own work to those high standards. Turns out, effortless prose – like ballet dancing or piano playing or landscape painting – takes quite a lot of effort indeed. Rarely do we see the practice sessions: the early stumbles, the off-notes, the flat and muddy scenes. There is a gap between what we aspire to write and what we are actually capable of in the moment. If we don’t understand this gap, we fill it up with shame and don’t attempt to write anything at all.

Balancing expectations is key

Ira Glass, journalist and host of the brilliant podcast This American Life, identifies the gap as taste. He says that as creatives, ‘our taste is killer’, but our work often disappoints us because it is lacking. We can see how it falls short, due to our good taste. He assures us this is normal, and to be expected when we first start out in the field of our creative work. It takes years to master a craft. Volume is essential, so we need to get started. It’s important to remember this when we feel disheartened.

At the end of the day, writing is work

Despite all that you’ve heard, writing is not a ‘gift’. It’s not an act of mystical channeling or frenzied ejaculation, although this does happen from time to time. Writing is simply hard work. It’s an arduous and serious business that can deliver great rewards – deep insights, personal growth, peace from reconciliation and the joy of telling your story and connecting with others.

Truth is, the more I write the harder it gets. This feels deeply unfair and seems like a paradox, but really it’s about the ever-increasing expectations I have for my work. Thomas Mann offered a bracing comfort when he pointed out,

'A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.'

So if you find writing hard, don’t worry. It means you’re doing it right. And most importantly you don’t have to do it alone. I created Bravewords to encourage more people to come together on the writing journey and support one another. By sharing our stories and having deeper conversations about the process we create little writing communities that help sustain our creative practice.

It’s much more fun that way.

A.F.

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Why is writing so scary? (When it used to be fun)