Young Writers Society

Okay, so for the past few weeks I haven't written anything. Yeah, I've forced a few things out for 15 in 15, but they're small things I don't end up saving anyway.
I haven't written anything because I'm so afraid of creating something bad. For example, in NaNo 2014 I spent the whole month writing my butt off and the entire thing ended up being horrible. 48,000 words of crap. I want to write something good. I don't want to re-live November.
I've heard many people mention "writer's anxiety." So is this fear of writing something bad "anxiety?" Or is this all in my head?
I just really need your help on how to overcome this. I don't know what else to do. A bad case of writer's block or writer's anxiety? I don't know.

Hey there! I know how you feel. i have extreme anxiety and it gets in the way of my everyday life- including my writing. I found this article and its helped a lot. Also for more help, just google " writers anxiety".
http://www.writersstore.com/when-all-th ... reativity/

@Castiel I have anxiety, too, but I didn't know *real* anxiety could get in the way of something I used to enjoy... Thanks for the link!

Don't know whether naming it anxiety would be right, but yes, it exists and happens with me almost each time I write. I even scrapped my novel after the third chapter was severely criticized for being cliched and dull. I now look back and regret that decision.

Is anxiety bad? No. But allowing anxiety to dominate your creative instinct is quite bad. Not bad actually, it is unfortunate. I am myself trying to win over my anxiety, but if you ask me, it's an unavoidable experience, something you have to live with.

Now the big question. How to cope anxiety while writing? How to conquer the fear of writing something bad? My trick is go with your instinct. Ask yourself whether you're emotionally reacting while writing a chapter. Are you feeling chocked while writing a dramatic scene? Are you laughing, crying, rooting for your characters? If the answer is Yes, chances are that even the reader is reacting in the same manner.

While writing the first draft, you have to go with this instinct and motivate yourself. And then we have so many talented reviewers here to tell you whether a thing is working or not. But dont get bogged down by the fear of failure. Bad work is also a very relative term. Everybody has a different eye.

Keep writing

Yes, writer's anxiety exist. As for getting over it.

You've identified your main source of anxiety being you don't want to write something bad again. So I'm going to tell you two things.

1- Yes, it will be terrible when you begin
2- It's not a permanent state

It will be terrible. This is normal

Take a deep breath and tell this to yourself. It is perfectly alright to be terrible. All writers start off here. All artists start off here. Writing is like learning a musical instrument; you don't expect yourself to hit perfectly clear notes right at the start.

It means you're learning, it means you've just started. It can feel really bad to have all your flaws right there, but that leads me to:

It won't last forever

You see all your flaws there and you want to fix them. You try to fix them and new issues show up. You fix those and you realize what your old issues had been have come back and they aren't as good as you remember them.

There is a gap between your taste and your ability

This is normal.

Keep writing. Keep finishing. Every time you finish something, go through this process:

1- Let it sit a little. Write something else in the mean time. Get another piece out.
2- Go back and read the thing you finished. Identify what doesn't work for you, what you want to improve. You can also post it up here to have reviewers identify what doesn't work for them, but you will improve faster if you do both.
3- Figure out how you could improve that thing. This could involve going off on the internet to sift through writing advice, asking your reviewers extra questions, or just deciding "what if I try this?"
4- Either edit the preexisting piece or write a new piece where you work specifically to improve what you feel the weakest on.
5- Repeat indefinitely.

It won't stop being terrible immediately, but it will get better with time. This is the process every single writer has gone through in order to improve, and it will work time and again.

Keep writing, keep finishing, and keep editing.

@DrFeelGood and @Rosendorn thank you two for helping! I guess where I just haven't written anything "good" in a long time I'm anxious about it. Thank you once again for the lovely advice and I'll keep trying. <3