I’m going to admit something shocking.

I have anxiety. And a lot of the time, anxiety breeds self-doubt.

I know, you didn’t see that coming.

Today my self-doubt comes from the twin facts that a) it’s Monday, which means I spent two whole days not thinking about writing so my brain is creaking back into gear like a an ancient windmill and b) I visited an amazing author’s website. Sarah Kuhn, in case you were curious. I just finished her book Heroine Complex and was curious about the person behind it. To put it simply, she’s brilliant.

So naturally, my first reaction was. “I’ll never be that creative and clever,” followed by a downward spiral.

But the thing is, I’m going to open up Scrivener and put one word in front of the other anyway.

Because tomorrow, when my anxiety is better (or worse, but let’s stay optimistic) I’ll feel better if I wrote today than if I didn’t. Even if the words suck, at least they’ll be there. I can fix or delete them later, but at least I made forward motion.

It’s not exactly encouraging or uplifting, but writing isn’t always. Sometimes it’s just putting one word in front of the other until you end up somewhere better.

Anyone else get overwhelmed by the amazingness of other writers? How do you handle it? Got any tips? Let me know.

P.S. My mss is at 49,000 words.