I am a writer who is afraid of writing. Well, not really. I fear the reactions of readers.

• What if I offend people?
• What if I make a fool of myself?
• What if something I write prevents me from ever finding another job?

The world is a terrifying place for any creator. You put a piece of yourself into your creation and then set it free into the world where it can be criticized. This criticism has become more aggressive and more accessible through the internet. Before the time of the internet, if I wrote an article or a book and somehow had it published, I would have to look for criticism. If I post something on my website or social media, a reader can engage directly there and when I sign back into the site, the comments will be there for me to read.

This criticism feels personal because as a creator, I put a piece of myself into the creation so any attack or criticism on the work feels like an attack on me. I have not learned to separate myself yet from what I produce.

As Bukowski said, “Don’t try.”

I don’t.

I don’t write. I don’t publish. I let myself and my thoughts disappear into the background.

Or at least I didn’t. I did not write out of fear.

So starting today, I am giving myself permission to write without fear. To write dangerously for 365 days.

The Challenge

I aim to post every day for one year about subjects I was afraid to write about before. I do not know exactly where this journey will take me. Throughout the upcoming weeks or months (hopefully before the end of the year?) I will find a pattern or a schedule for what I post, but for now, you can expect posts about the following:

• Who I am: you can get a sense of how and why I do what I do and how you can too if that is something you are interested in.
• Finding my voice: many writers will tell you voice is one of the most important elements of writing. I have silenced mine for years and have had to rediscover it, which is a journey that I am still on. I am sharing it with you in case it will help you as well. I will talk about my personal challenges as well as how to use it in the craft of writing.
• The practice of writing: how I make time for writing, improve my writing, and bring it into other areas of my life.
• Reading lists: to write well, you need to read. A LOT. I read between 25-40 books a year. That is a lot by most people’s standards. I am looking to reduce the number of books I read per year—which I will talk about in a later post.
• Health and Wellness: over the decade, I have started prioritizing my health and well-being. But I can be an obsessive workaholic. When I start working on something that requires a lot of my attention or when I am stressed, I revert to my old habits. Health and well-being become lower, or abandoned, priorities. I hope to adjust over time.
• Traveling and living abroad: Fear, and excuses, held me back from moving or traveling abroad. After losing my job a few years ago, I had the chance to imagine and pursue a different kind of life for myself. Now, I live in Europe, made great friends, and will be completing a master’s degree by the end of the summer.

My fears

Fear of being wrong:

It is impossible to know everything. I do not know anyone who claims to. I do not claim to. We have this insane fear of being wrong; we feel shame in it. Finding out you are wrong is an opportunity to learn and grow. It takes tremendous strength to admit when we are wrong and to change our minds. I have not yet mastered this wiliness to admit when I am wrong.

Fear of offending anyone

In today’s climate, anything on the internet can offend someone. I have no intention of offending anyone. If I do, I hope to have the opportunity to learn how to navigate that in the future.

Fear of not being able to get a job:

I worry that being too open on the internet will be a problem when I need to start applying for jobs again. I mean when I finish my master’s program and there is (hopefully) no pandemic and I have no excuse not to work full time.

Fear that no one cares what I had to say:

The internet is a never-ending supply of content. Why does it need 365+ additional posts from me? Who am I anyway? I am not an expert on anything. Nor do I pretend to be. I am a writer and an anthropologist who sharing her thoughts and writing on the internet. There is nothing new about that. So I asked myself over the past several years, what can I add by putting more content on the internet. At the end of the day, I hope that I can inspire at least you or someone you know to face, and hopefully someday conquer, a fear that is holding you back.

Fear of failing or at least not following through:

I like to think of myself as a semi-reliable person. I am a perfectionist and a workaholic. I also move from project to project and put things down almost as quickly as I pick them up. I have procrastinated writing because I was worried that, once again, I would not follow through. What is the point of starting if I probably will not follow through? The last couple of times I started a blog, I stopped. What is the point of trying again? This is Bukowski’s point. I should not try to write. I should write.

Fear of being seen:

Contrary to what many people who have spent a lot of time with me may think, I hate attention. I like to blend into crowds. I want to be invisible. This is difficult to grasp because I am loud and talk a lot. But this behavior only happens when I have to speak or I feel comfortable. This occurs with writing as well. I do not want to be seen, read, or heard. I do not want to share parts of myself on the internet or with audiences because I want to remain hidden among the 7 billion people on this planet.

These are all excuses

Rather than being reasons, these are excuses. Excuses not to follow through with the one thing that I have wanted to do with my life: write. My fears, or excuses, are internal. There may be external consequences, but they all tie back into the question of why I write in the first place. I write because I love it. I write primarily for myself with the hope that someone else out there connects with what I have to say. If it is one person, a hundred, or a thousand does not influence how, why, and what I write—at least not today. So why should those who would not connect with my writing stop me from writing?
I am sure you have plenty of reasons of your own. I wonder if you wrote them down, you would still call them reasons or if you would agree with me that these are excuses.

The Goal

The goal of this project is to face my fear of being seen, failing, being wrong, and all the other variations above. For years, these fears have held me back from writing and creating the kind of life I want for myself. Maybe you can say the same. Maybe that is why you are here. If so, please feel free to join me and give yourself permission to face your fears, whatever they may be. Feel free to be wrong. Feel free to be seen. Feel free to express yourself. I know this is easier said than done. This has taken me years, and even today, I cannot even promise myself I will make it every day for the entire year. I fear I may fail; I fear this project of 365 days of writing and posting may be too ambitious. But I have a greater fear of what my life will be like if I do not release myself from these fears.

If this is something that resonates with you, if you have a project you have been procrastinating, or if you want to start a daily writing habit, I invite you to join me on this journey.

What do you say? Will you join me and spend a year writing dangerously?