#writer anxiety

[wheneverfeasible]

I’ve just seen like five separate posts from five different people talking about just writing and not caring if it’s perfect, or writing what you want to see, writing and not caring about expectations, writing because you want to…

And listen, I was just saying how I had some writer anxiety because of expectations for the ending resolution of one of my fics and worried about disappointing those waiting for it, but it’s honestly so true. In the end I write for me, and if others enjoy it too, great. But ultimately I, and every other writer, just have to write what makes me happy. If I’m content with it, then that’s all that matters.

I want others to like it too, of course, but I need to remind myself that I am my own target audience. My own #1 fan. And I would hate to disappoint myself by not taking that into consideration.

[eponastory]

An accurate depiction of me tossing my outline...

that's right, I'm gonna Leroy Jenkins it.

[mbrainspaz]

I started haphazardly making up the fantasy language for my story over a decade ago, based loosely at first on Ancient Persian and then on a mish-mash of Old Norse, Gaelic, and Old English, so sometimes I encounter words I made up that I'm just like... where the hell did that one come from and what does it mean? And then I have to spend a few minutes trying to reverse engineer the etymology of a word I MADE UP. Allegedly. I have also occasionally just stolen whole words, which makes me incredibly nervous in hindsight. Like I know my word for 'nice' means 'ice cream' in Scotts-Gaelic but what else have I forgotten? What linguistic abominations have I overlooked? My memory is a sieve and I came up with most of these words at 2am. I've never had significant formal education in any ancient, old, or dead languages. I know just enough about languages to know I know frighteningly little. I got into this mess because for many years I absolutely refused to make up a fantasy language. To me it seemed like a dangerous distraction from the work of storytelling. I was certain that I could avoid ever needing to make up a language by coming up with enough excuses for characters to speak real ones. But the story and the fantasy cultures inside it kept growing. During a summer of world building work (7-ish years into the project) I finally caved and started keeping a glossary. It's still the worst glossary you've never seen. It's not alphabetized. In fact apart from a few sections of related words there's no order to it all despite the fact that it contains... over 1000 words?! And you know what the worst part is??? There's still no grammar! It's a tossed word salad of a language and my only hope is that none of those language nerd types will ever read this story. They would see right through it and I'd be the biggest joke in the language nerd community for all time. Horrible to realize that if I'd taken the time to make up a whole language when I was 19 I would've saved myself a decade or two of these troubles. It could honestly ruin my life if I published it and got called out because clearly I am deeply insecure about this. Too late to fix it now though.

Although I did have one of my language nerd friends (guy who can speak & write all the Tolkien languages) test read a few chapters and he said the language sounded cool. I don't know what to make of that. After all this anxiety maybe I tripped and fell into a puddle of paint and the splash pattern created a painting of a really badass looking dragon.

[cyrusvgz]

I would love to be able to write a story and not start hating it almost immediately after I share it with others.

help

[luna-azzurra]

Character flaws for an anxious character

Constant worrying: Obsessively fretting over even the smallest details.

Overplanning: Creating elaborate contingency plans for every possible scenario.

Indecisiveness: Struggling to make decisions due to fear of making the wrong choice.

Social anxiety: Feeling extremely nervous or uncomfortable in social situations.

Perfectionism: Setting impossibly high standards for themselves and others.

Avoidance behavior: Dodging situations or responsibilities that trigger anxiety.

Overapologizing: Saying sorry for everything, even when it's not their fault.

Hyperawareness of physical sensations: Being overly sensitive to bodily sensations and interpreting them as signs of impending doom.

Catastrophizing: Jumping to the worst-case scenario in any given situation.

Need for reassurance: Constantly seeking validation or reassurance from others.

Rumination: Getting stuck in a loop of negative thoughts and overanalyzing past events.

Difficulty relaxing: Finding it hard to unwind and let go of stress.

Overthinking: Overanalyzing every word or action, leading to anxiety about social interactions.

Physical symptoms of anxiety: Experiencing symptoms like sweating, trembling, or rapid heartbeat in stressful situations.

Avoidance of confrontation: Going to great lengths to avoid conflict or uncomfortable conversations.

People-pleasing: Putting others' needs and desires above their own to avoid conflict.

Overpreparation: Spending excessive time and energy preparing for events or tasks.

Self-doubt: Second-guessing their abilities and decisions due to fear of failure.

Fear of the unknown: Feeling anxious about uncertain or unfamiliar situations.

Imposter syndrome: Believing they are not worthy of their achievements and fearing they will be exposed as a fraud.

[turtleofthehollow]

writing is excruciating when you have an anxiety about being perceived

[crippledwithrage]

Write a fanfic of your own story.

Write something absurd that derails your story.

Write something that turns your story upside down.

Write something that you never thought you could write.

Write something you wanted to include but just didn't fit.

Write a fanfiction of your story.

[thatsbelievable]

[kafkasapartment]

"Throw everything out of your mind. Read a little, sleep. The world will still be here when you wake up, and there'll still be everything left to do."

- James Baldwin

[notbecauseofvictories]

I would say 98% of the time, I think of a partner as a "nice to have." Like a cleaning service, or takeout, or sending dirty clothes out to get them laundered---you can get through your life without it, and I do think sometimes people use it as a band-aid for deeper problems. That's not to say that things like partners/cleaning services/takeout/laundry aren't wonderful, positive additions to your life! Just that you don't actually need these things to....you know, live.

....but that remaining 2% of the time? My apartment feels very big and empty.

[whumpypepsigal]

JJ + chest pain

[autumnbell32]

The coffee I’ve made the last few days- electing to make it hot rather than over ice- has been pulling at my guts. While reading or attending to some task, I’ll smell it and the grief makes a sucking sound. It reminds me of the coffee I’d buy from the machine in the university basement- a warm, sweet comfort while I pored over my textbooks with my highlighters. I was one of the best students, one of the most eager. I aced tests and was asked by competitive classmates with knives in their eyes, “How did you do that?”

I try to remind myself that she is still there, despite how far from academia she’s been blown. Lacking purpose, other than survival, is painful and I was just about to be able to take the training wheels off and start living again (after 15 years). I had reached that level of stability. Would I have started listening to Marina and the Diamonds or M83 again? Start my aquarium hobby back up? Ponder going back to school for another degree or my master’s? Go to some writing clubs? Bake for people again? Last week’s hypomania, subsequent depression, facing abelism at work, panic attacks in the work bathroom yesterday and resulting ocular migraine told me, “No, not yet…if ever.” I squinted while I folded clothes and helped customers- I couldn’t see anything out of my right eye except a floating, scythe-shaped anomaly, the insides of it black, white, purple, flashing. How alone I felt. And scared.

[rentedvsl]

i thought when i was in high school that having trouble making friends was something you would just overcome as you got older. now that I'm older & out of school, i realized it's actually harder. theres no classes, study halls, or school events to get to know someone in, & there are very few events organized by parents you have to go to anymore. you have to work, but depending on the job that can be a hard place to make friends. because who is truly authentic when they're under that kind of pressure & exhaustion? making friends when you get older is hard. making friends means you take the leap by suggesting hanging out with a coworker outside of work despite having no idea if they are only nice to you out of necessity. making friends means having uncomfortable conversations & driving people long distances and running out of things to say in the car. making friends means staying after church instead of walking out as soon as service is over and talking to that one girl you only ever smile at every sunday. making friends means saying "we should grab a coffee sometime" while your hands are shaking

[imravikumar]

Doesn't it happen to you that when you are with people you want to leave and lock yourself in an empty room, but at the same time you would like someone to notice that you are missing and come sit in silence with you?

[what-iz-life]

i’m so exhausted. i feel like i’m repeating the same day over and over, the same routine, same feelings, same meaningless drama. i’m so sick of it, i just want to feel alive and be happy but i’m constantly drained and everything feels so pointless. i just feel dead.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: The Antidote to Anxiety

Anxiety is “the dizziness of freedom” and believed that it serves to power rather than hinder creativity. (Kierkegaard)

Anxiety was a paralyzing lifelong struggle — he accomplished his breakthroughs not because of anxiety but despite it. (Darwin)

“Anxiety makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you.” (Anaïs Nin)

“The truth is, we know so little about life, we don’t really know what the good news is and what the bad news is.” (Kurt Vonnegut)

The great first-century Roman philosopher Seneca examined anxiety, and its only real antidote, with uncommon insight in his correspondence with his friend Lucilius Junior, later published as "Letters from a Stoic". Seneca:

There are more things … likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

What I advise you to do is, not to be unhappy before the crisis comes; since it may be that the dangers before which you paled as if they were threatening you, will never come upon you; they certainly have not yet come.

Accordingly, some things torment us more than they ought; some torment us before they ought; and some torment us when they ought not to torment us at all.

We are in the habit of exaggerating, or imagining, or anticipating, sorrow.

You will suffer soon enough, when it arrives; so look forward meanwhile to better things.

What shall you gain by doing this? Time.

There will be many happenings meanwhile which will serve to postpone, or end, or pass on to another person, the trials which are near or even in your very presence.

A fire has opened the way to flight.

Men have been let down softly by a catastrophe.

Sometimes the sword has been checked even at the victim’s throat. Men have survived their own executioners.

Even bad fortune is fickle. Perhaps it will come, perhaps not; in the meantime it is not.

The mind at times fashions for itself false shapes of evil when there are no signs that point to any evil; it twists into the worst construction some word of doubtful meaning; or it fancies some personal grudge to be more serious than it really is, considering not how angry the enemy is, but to what lengths he may go if he is angry.

But life is not worth living, and there is no limit to our sorrows, if we indulge our fears to the greatest possible extent; in this matter, let prudence help you, and contemn with a resolute spirit even when it is in plain sight.

If you cannot do this, counter one weakness with another, and temper your fear with hope.

There is nothing so certain among these objects of fear that it is not more certain still that things we dread sink into nothing and that things we hope for mock us.

Accordingly, weigh carefully your hopes as well as your fears, and whenever all the elements are in doubt, decide in your own favour; believe what you prefer.

And if fear wins a majority of the votes, incline in the other direction anyhow, and cease to harass your soul, reflecting continually that most mortals, even when no troubles are actually at hand or are certainly to be expected in the future, become excited and disquieted.

He ends the letter with a quote from Epicurus illustrating this sobering point:

The fool, with all his other faults, has this also, he is always getting ready to live.

Sources: 1 2 More: On Psychology