Member-only story
The Best Advice for Writing
I wish I had known it sooner
A question that seeks no answer
Yesterday, I finished another article to post on Medium. It’s a piece over 1,900 words long, sharing my journey and methods for learning Chinese characters. I put a lot of time, effort, and heart into it. While editing it, a small voice inside me suddenly spoke up:
‘What if no one reads it?’
The voice was timid, almost a whisper. Yet, I felt my heart drop like it fell into my stomach and hit my gut. My stomach tightened up too.
This isn’t the first time that voice has ‘reminded’ or ‘warned’ me (I’m not sure what to call it). And often, it’s been right. But so what? I still find myself sitting in front of the screen, typing until my fingers are sore.
It seems like this process keeps repeating: write -> self-doubt -> publish -> uncertainty -> writing again.
At some point, my passion for writing grew stronger than my fear. And if it could grow stronger than the fear of writing, there’s no reason for it to give in to the fear that no one will read what I write.
A fear that can free itself
Questions like that have haunted me many times. It comes from the very natural fear of my…
