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Keeping your writing to yourself?

Defeating the Demons of Doubt

Anne Janzer
4 min readOct 16, 2024

Unfinished writing, half-filled journals, and abandoned files clutter the lives of all writers. It’s the mulch from which other work springs-writing that we share with the world.

But sometimes, we don’t share. We don’t ship. And that’s a real problem, because until you share something, your process isn’t completed.

“We don’t ship because we’re creative. We’re creative because we ship.”

Seth Godin, The Practice

Why don’t we ship?

If you’re not shipping, perhaps you’re giving in to the demons of doubt. They whisper in your inner ear that you’re not a real writer, or that your work isn’t good enough to share or submit or publish.

Maybe you hear them right now?

If those pesky demons fail to stop you from writing, they grow more insistent when you consider posting online, submitting to a publication or contest, or publishing a book.

Shipping the work always feels risky, awakening the demons of doubt.

Whether you need to hear this right now or you run into it in the future, here are three ways to reinforce yourself against the fear and ship.

1. Bring the doubt into the…

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Anne Janzer
Anne Janzer

Written by Anne Janzer

Author, Nonfiction book coach. Unapologetic Nonfiction Geek. Writing about Writing Itself (very meta). AnneJanzer.com

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