Hi Praise Ohanwe,

First of all, sorry it took so long for me to respond. Thank you for reading and sharing your experience with me. While I can’t give you specific advice on what you should do, I can offer you some questions that may help you take steps to finding a solution.

I’ve read some of your writing and I can say that you definitely have a distinct voice as a writer. Each piece that I’ve read shows a bit of your personality and I had a great time reading each of them. You have great pieces of advice to share and I encourage you to continue sharing :).

We all enjoy social validation, which is why we love when we gain recognition from others for our work. We understand that we can be blind to our faults, but while that self awareness might be helpful in curbing our ego, it can also be harmful because we can end up criticizing ourselves too harshly.

We become our own worst critics and whisper discouraging and disparaging words. Our inner voice becomes projected onto the external world and we believe that other people are thinking the self deprecating thoughts that fill our heads when we think about publishing our writing. We must learn to recognize that the pain caused by our mental battles is often self inflicted.

Write because you want to write. Write because you want to get better at writing. Write because you love to articulate your thoughts and construct the mysterious, unconscious world within you piece by piece. Write because you want to help people. Write without a care in the world what other people may think of you. Write because you know the inner critic is wrong.

You can also change your mindset — who said your writing needs to be perfect right now? A psychologist who I admire once said that you must be a fool before you can become a master. No one expects you to be a perfect writer right now. Many great writers wrote for many years until their first breakthrough novel. Many great writers died before their writing was heralded as great writing. Knowing this, we can take some pressure off of ourselves, practice self compassion, take baby steps as we slowly develop our skill set.

Your comment has also helped me realize a lot of things about myself, so I want to thank you for sharing your thoughts. In your moment of vulnerability, you taught me a valuable lesson and exposed the excuses I was telling myself as well.

I wish you the best of luck in your journey as a writer :) I really do hope you continue to write!