How to Finish Writing Your Story, Even if You Feel Shame, Fear, or Doubt

Why 97% of all writing obstacles live inside our ‘author’s mind’

Writing is a personal journey. Although the end-result of our work is destined to be consumed by the masses, the process of getting to said end result is a ton of internal work.

We must overcome our personal demons.

We must learn what we don’t know about writing, so we can get better than where we are now. Although it’s important we learn what we don’t know after we start writing, not before.

We must learn to work with self-sabotage, impostor syndrome, and shame.

In short, not only do we have to come up with a story our readers want to read, but we’ve got to fight ourselves in the process.

In my work in neuroscience I’ve found the human mind will do anything to prevent us from trying something new. The brain is in the business of energy conservation.

The old habits worked. Old habits are hard-wired and automatic. New behaviors and new journeys (like writing) require a lot more mental calories and cognitive effort.

Your brain does not want you to become a writer.

Crazy, eh?

Here we are, trying to be our best selves and the thing that’s supposed to be our ally, and our best buddy (our mind) is our own worst enemy. But unlike our worst enemy, we can’t escape our own head.

If you keep reading, I’ll show you how I overcame my own writing demons, developed the daily writing habit, and learned to finish my work, so I can move on to the next project.

Start small

Your biggest enemy is the oldest part of your brain — the limbic system. If you try to start anything new in your life, this fight-or-flight part of your brain will look at your new project as the enemy.

The brain wants to protect you from danger.

New, stressful tasks get a similar reaction as a rabid dog (remember, this old part of your brain doesn’t do well with rating threats on a scale of 1–10. It thinks almost everything is a 10).

The limbic system will throw many wrenches your way — procrastination, self-doubt, impostor syndrome, and shame, to name a handful.

The first thing new writers do when they start, is go BIG.

We want to write an entire novel or short story without first learning the basics. We want to write for hours, without first training ourselves to write a few minutes a day.

When we go BIG — when we jump without looking — the brain will do everything it can to stop you from doing the same behavior again. You might get away with it once, but tomorrow will be different.

Your brain will fight your new writing habit until your back on the couch with the bag of Cheetos — where you belong. Nice and docile. Back to stasis, where the brain doesn’t have to work hard.

However, like every good alarm system, there’s always a backdoor way to bypass the alarm — for the technician to tinker with the system. Your limbic system has a backdoor too. And we’ll use it.

The trick is to start small.

First, learn to write every day. It doesn’t matter what you write, but train yourself to write one word each day. This is a stupid-simple goal, so simple, your brain won’t see it as a threat.

One word becomes 500. The brain never saw it coming.

Change your perspective

We all write for different reasons. For some, it’s cathartic. Others, for commercial reasons. And some, to grow as a person. Your actual reason for writing doesn’t matter here.

No matter why you write, we need to change our perspective.

Instead of looking at writing as a deeply-emotional act, where we take a piece of ourselves and slather the page with our soul, like a thick layer of cream cheese on a bagel — we’ll take all the emotion from the process.

This will be new for many people.

It might feel non-artistic.

But stick with me a minute.

I want you to become a blue-collar writer — to look at writing as a daily vocation, not some soul-crushing vice, pressing-down on your body, preventing you from doing your best work.

I write over a million words a year. And some of those words turn out pretty good.

I’m able to accomplish all this writing, because I stopped taking it personally. I write like it’s my job. I write to stay alive. I write, because I can’t imagine not writing.

I re-framed the work. I picture myself in a blue, one-piece mechanic’s suit (hence, my Book Mechanic persona). I punch the clock. I turn the crank. I go home when the work is done.

If I stopped to think about my feelings and took my work personally again, I’d write maybe once a month. The process would be too hard on me — take too much out of me.

Now, I play the tape and write what I see.

When my shift is over, I punch the clock again and go home.

I want you to do the same. If you want to be a writer, treat the process like a blue-collar vocation. Hone your craft every day, as if you’re learning to re-build an engine, make a chair from scratch, or develop a sonata.

No one would assume they could build a chair if they’ve never used a saw.

Yet, people try writing every day and get discouraged when the story doesn’t work on the first try.

Re-frame the way you look at the writing process. Try the blue-collar path. Take the personal parts out of it. Today you’ll work to be better than tomorrow. Tomorrow will be better than today.

The big secret

If you’re still having trouble starting, I want to share the big secret of writing. It’s a secret so basic, yet so deep, it’s important for every writer to understand — but new writers especially.

No one cares.

We don’t care about your story. We don’t care how personal it is to you. We don’t care if it took a day or five years to write. We don’t care how nervous you were when you published it. We don’t care if you feel vulnerable or afraid.

We’re too busy with our own insecurities.

We’ve got our own baggage.

We’ll read your story if the premise resonates with us. We’ll ignore it if the premise doesn’t resonate. Yes, we might give a nasty review occasionally, but we have no idea who you are as a person.

The writing isn’t you.

The writing is a series of symbols, arranged in a certain order, so the reader projects a mental movie in her mind. If she doesn’t like the movie she might share that with others.

But the writing isn’t you.

We don’t have time to care. We don’t have the bandwidth to care. Even the most-personal stories we read are not the writer. At best, they’re the transcription of something that happened to us. Good or bad.

All that wasted effort on feeling afraid, ashamed, or less-than, is all in your mind. This is your limbic system trying to trick you into avoiding novelty. When you feel these emotions, try to force a wry smile instead of a frown. When you feel these emotions, it means you’re on the right path.

Your limbic system has a secondary purpose we don’t talk about much. This ancient alarm is also a greatness meter. When you feel the resistance (as Steven Pressfield shares in The War of Art), it means you’re exactly where you should be.

It’s time to press-on.

It’s time to ship your work

The story isn’t a story until it’s done and published. If you don’t release your work to your readers, there is no story. You’ve got a half-done idea in a drawer.

Attack the writing as if you’re crafting a chair:

• Start small. Use the technician’s backdoor
• Take yourself out of the process. Become a stenographer, doing nothing more than taking notes from the movie in your mind
• Remember, the process is not personal, even if the story is
• We can’t read it if the story isn’t done. If you don’t want us to read it, don’t waste your time writing the story. Writing is meant to be read. If the story is too personal to share, don’t write it

Try.

Start small — just one word per day. Sneak past the guards.

This is your life’s work here. Writing isn’t something you try once. Writing is a journey. Tomorrow’s work should be better than today’s.

As you work through this journey, don’t forget to build a reader’s list. You’ll need readers (a lot of them) if you want to become a commercial writer.

If you want to build your reader’s list now, you’ll have a rabid audience as you launch your future work. This should be a list you own (instead of relying on social media or some other big-business platform). Tap the link below. Enroll in my Tribe 1K indie email masterclass. I’ll show you how to get your first 1,000 subscribers (and your next 1,000) without spending one hot nickel on ads.

We’re waiting for you.

Enroll in my Free Email Masterclass. Get Your First 1,000 Subscribers

August Birch (AKA the Book Mechanic) is both a fiction and non-fiction author from Michigan, USA. As a self-appointed guardian of writers and creators, August teaches indies how to make work that sells and how to sell more of that work once it’s created. When he’s not writing or thinking about writing, August carries a pocket knife and shaves his head with a safety razor.