I think that one of the biggest struggles that I had to deal with since I became a writer was a constant fear that would make me question the quality of what I was writing during the process itself.
Having to constantly stop and reread everything I was typing in order to make sure that it was all perfect and that it all made sense was one of the biggest problems I had to solve.
I constantly felt as if I was making mistakes that I could not fix later, mistakes that would lead to either a poorly written article that I would have to publish out of lack of other options, or mistakes that would eventually lead to me deleting the article and trying to write another one at an inconvenient moment.
To be honest with you, I'm not even sure how I dealt with this problem a few years ago. I don't remember if I just decided to keep on writing despite that fear, if I gave up and double checked every sentences the moment I was done writing anything, or if I just ignored the fear, hoping that one day it would go away.
Regardless of my approach back then, I now realize, after being a writer for several years, that being afraid of writing a bad article and constantly trying to edit everything as you go is a dumb way to create content.
When you write, you should not be afraid of making mistakes. You should accept that mistakes are a part of the process and that you'll always make them, no matter how good of a writer you become and no matter what type of content you create.
Some of those mistakes will be the result of negligence. Others will be the result of stress. Some mistakes you'll make because you're tired. And others will be the result of distractions.
Regardless of the reason, you'll make mistakes, and there's very little you can do about it that won't slow down your entire process and transform writing into a hurdle.
As time went by, I learned to accept those mistakes as part of me, and to worry less and less about them. Nowadays, whenever I write, I have a single goal in mind - to try to talk about my idea in the best way I can at the present moment, regardless of how I feel about what I'm writing.
The reason is that I try to leave the editing for.. well, the editing process. Editing comes after I write, not before, not while I do it, but after. Once I'm done with putting my ideas into sentences and paragraphs, I begin to edit. Sometimes I do it immediately, if I need to, other times I do it after a few hours, other times after a few days.
It doesn't really matter when I edit what I write, it only matters that I do it, and that through editing my work becomes better. I dedicate some time to spotting and fixing mistakes, to rewriting the sentences that don't make much sense and to improving those sections of my articles that need improving.
Doing all that after you write everything that you needed to write will not only give you a different perspective on the content you create, but it will also allow you to better criticize your creation, because you can look at it through the eyes of a critic, of a consumer, not through the eyes of the creator who wants everything to be perfect.
All this is why I think that it's important that you write without the fear of making a mistake. Mistakes are okay, as long as they are corrected in the editing process. Once you accept that, writing becomes easier. Expressing yourself becomes easier. Creating, in general, becomes easier. All that because you know that despite all the errors that you'll make, everything will be fixed later, once the writing is done.
Writing without fear... A lot of people have buried their best work due to fear and some won't even take the due diligence to edit because they are not ready to put in the work.
Fear can be paralyzing and it can end up putting you in a loop, where you can't make yourself do any work, and you end up feeling miserable because of it. It's hard to get out of suck a situation, but it can be done.
I totally agree. It's hard but not impossible.
It is important to edit after writing all ideas from your head because you might forget all you have to write if you are editing and at the same time writing. We shouldn´t be afraid to make mistakes because it is bound to happen but we must accept our mistakes and improve.
Exactly. I've had innumerable moments in which I stopped writing to edit a small thing and I forgot my idea, having to either waste time trying to remember what point I was trying to make or having to change my sentence / paragraph completely because I couldn't figure out what I wanted to write initially. Now I just write everything regardless of the mistakes I make, and I edit everything, which makes the entire process both faster and easier.