are you scared to write publicly or ARE YOU JUST MEANT TO WRITE FICTION?
Why being into touch with our BODY DATA is crucial to becoming a successful writer
I’m staring at my drafts folder right now and there are seventeen stories in here that will never see daylight. Seventeen weird, wonderful, completely made-up worlds that I’d rather die than let another human being read.
But this essay? Where I’m about to dissect my creative process and expose all my writerly neuroses? This I’ll publish without hesitation.
Make it make SENSE dude.
Sometimes I sit at night and scroll substacks at 2am wondering if I’m doing this whole writing thing wrong sometimes. “Am I not enough?” “Is something in my childhood trauma tormenting me into not making my art visible to the world?” “Should I bring this up in therapy?”
Then my logical mind kicks in. I walk through my feelings, acknowledge them, and then draw inferences from the data they’re telling me. Ultimately, I land on this: am I really scared to make my fiction pieces public, or am I just meant to write personal essays right now?
Because There’s a Difference, Right?
There’s a difference between fear that needs to be faced and intuition that needs to be followed.
One of the most important things we can do as writers is be in touch with ourselves. Not just our craft, not just our voice, but our SELVES. Because if you’re not connected to what your body and nervous system are telling you about your work, you’re missing the most crucial data about what you’re meant to create right now.
My reluctance to share fiction paired with my compulsion to publish personal essays isn’t random. It’s information. And I’m starting to think a lot of us are getting similar information but interpreting it as creative failure instead of creative guidance.
Thus, Decision Paralysis Is Born.
So many of you have messaged me saying you don’t know where to start with Substack. That you have seven drafts sitting there that you can’t bring yourself to hit publish on. That you’re paralyzed by the question of what to share and what to keep private.
But what if that sticky, icky, annoying decision paralysis is exactly what you’re supposed to lean into to get guidance about where to go next?
What if that reluctance to hit send on something personal on Substack is the whisper of you future self trying to get you started on the path you’re meant to walk sooner rather than later? What if by listening to our BODIES we can collapse all of the infinite possibilities our current moment could be into one beautiful, curated, chosen moment of creative certainty?
When we understand this, doors open for us: Are you scared to write publicly, or are you just meant to write fiction? Are you avoiding personal essays, or are you being called toward them? And how do you know the difference?
Your Feelings Are Data. Not Gospel.
And if you’re not paying attention to what your body is telling you about your work, you’re missing the most important feedback you’ll ever get about what you’re meant to create.
That sick feeling in your stomach when you hover over the publish button on your personal essay? Data. The way your entire nervous system relaxes when you’re writing dialogue between characters who exist only in your imagination? Also data. The panic that floods your chest when someone asks to read your memoir versus the excitement that bubbles up when they want to hear about the fantasy novel you’re plotting? All of it.
Fucking. Data.
We’ve been conditioned to call these signals “fear” and push through them. To white-knuckle our way to vulnerability. To bleed on pages because that’s what “real” writers do.
check out my thoughts about why we should create from the scar instead of bleed on the page on my Instagram Reels:
But What If Some of That “Fear” Is Actually Your Creative Compass?
I used to think the stories hiding in my drafts folder made me a coward. That my reluctance to share them meant I wasn’t a “real” writer. That the only way to prove my worthiness was to turn my trauma into content and serve it up for strangers to consume even if I haven’t processed it yet.
Then I wrote the first 200 pages of a romantic realism manuscript about a girl navigating PTSD. I poured every bit of my experience healing from my sexual aassault trial and trying to be normal after into it. It was beautiful, annd raw, and curated with just the right balance of love, lust, self explorations and deeply grounding reality.
And then I just… stopped. Even though the story came through me like I was taking dictation and plot mapping from some other dimension and grounding it into our reality.
I loved that story more than anything I’d ever written. And the thought of sharing it made me want to vomit.
Not because I was scared of judgment. Because it felt too sacred. Too true. Too much like exposing the holiest part of myself to people who might not understand that they were witnessing a miracle.
And I KNEW That Body Feedback Meant Something.
But here’s where it gets… complicated. We live in a culture that tells us our body’s wisdom is just fear in disguise. That if we’re not sharing our most vulnerable work, we’re being cowards. That real writers push through the discomfort and hit publish anyway.
So I started questioning everything. Was my reluctance to share that manuscript actually protecting something sacred, or was I just being a scared little girl who couldn’t handle the thought of strangers reading about her trauma?
But…What If You’re Not Scared? What If You’re Just Meant to Build Worlds Instead of Bleed on Pages?
We live in the age of the personal essay. The memoir boom. The vulnerability Olympics where whoever shares their trauma most beautifully wins the internet for the day.
And there’s power in that kind of writing. Medicine in confession. Healing in breaking yourself open and showing people your beating heart. It absolutely has a purpose.
But what if YOUR specific medicine looks different?
What if YOUR truth comes through in the way your fictional characters love each other? What if YOUR deepest wisdom lives in the mythology you create, the impossible worlds you build, the stories that could never happen but feel more real than reality?
What if that urge to “hide” behind fiction isn’t avoidance, but is your creative compass pointing you toward where your real magic lives?
You are making SUCH good points here! Never thought about it like that. I am definitely going to listen more deeply to all this data :)
🥺 bravo