Are you a writer? Do you feel insecure about your writing life? Well then the Insecure Writer’s Support Group is the support group for you! IWSG is a monthly blog hop created by Alex J. Cavanuagh and co-hosted this month by Jemima Pett, Debs Carey, Kim Lajevard, Sarah Foster, Natalie Aguirre, and T. Powell Coltrin. If you want to learn more about this amazingly supportive group and see a full list of participating blogs, click here.
Hello, friends! For today’s IWSG post, I’ve decided to turn the floor over to my muse, the magical fairy person who encourages me (sometimes by brute force) to do my writing. She has something to say, and perhaps it’s something your muse would like to hear.
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My fellow muses, what do you do when your writer stops believing that they’re a writer? Writers write. It’s the most natural and normal thing for them to do. And yet many writers (my own included) make themselves miserable with self doubt. My writer often starts asking himself questions like “Is writing really worth it?” or “Why am I doing this to myself?” or “What if it’s time to quit writing?”
From talking with other muses, I’ve learned that many creative humans struggle with these questions. If only there were a way self doubt could be used to generate energy, the perpetual self doubt of writers and artists could be used to solve the humans’ energy crisis.

Recently, another human said a thing to my writer. An insensitive and cruel thing. As a direct result of this thing that was said, my writer started asking himself more frequently and fervently: “Should I give up on writing?” Again and again, day and night, for weeks on end: “Should I give up? Should I give up? Should I give up?”
Obviously, the answer is no, but it was equally obvious that doubts and insecurities of this kind had been simmering beneath the surface for a long time already. Otherwise, one single, careless comment would not have caused so much duress. So rather than simply saying “no” to all this self-doubting and self-questioning, I offered a different question: “Should you, perhaps, give up on writing this one project—this one particular project that you’ve been stuck on for the past two or three years?”
That gave my writer pause. That got my writer thinking again, got him wondering what he might write instead of that old writing project. It got him to consider ideas that were fresh and new, ideas that are true to the person my writer is today, rather than the person he used to be several years ago. Of course, my writer did not come up with these fresh new ideas without help. I contributed to the process. I am his muse, after all.
So, my fellow muses, if your writer keeps getting stuck on questions like “Should I give up on writing?” a simple “no” may not be sufficient. A better answer may be to change or rephrase the original question.