Is What You Write Who You Are?

Discovering your authentic writing voice

By Goami on iStock (licensed by author)

New writers live in fear. These passionate, but not yet experienced scribblers, are always terrified someone will read their latest article — if the writer finds the nerve to publish — and these readers then scream, “you are a fake, a pretender and are not a real writer at all.”

Many writers believe they were born to write, but then we fear our work just isn’t good enough to be published or read by the very readers we seek. We shake in terror that we might sound ignorant to a reader who knows our subject and who might comment we just weren’t prepared to write at that level.

We also obsess dreading the big mistakes missed by three late night edits that might make us look unprofessional. Was the punctuation right? Was that word really used properly? We want to be read, but we can’t stand the thought of being critiqued for the work we send out to the public in our name.

We all share this fear when it comes to our writing, and even the best of us — the ones who make their living creating art for the rest of us to savor — still have that deep seated insecurity that our latest work just isn’t what the reader is going to like.

We want to write to be read, but were afraid if we are read, we will…