Everyone is a Writer: How to Stop Thinking, “I’m Not Good Enough” Forever

Not everyone feels like a born writer.

When you blog, creating content is the most important part of what you do.

Your content must be compelling, informative and valuable enough to be “tweeted,” “liked” and “plussed.” If it’s good enough, you’ll attract many inbound links as well.

Everyone says “Content is King,” and while that’s certainly true, there is no universally accepted metric for what it takes to make great content.

For many readers, it’s the message the content tries to convey. For some, it’s the music of the language and the way it’s written.

But it all boils down to the message you’re trying to communicate, which is why everyone IS a born writer.

If you can speak, you can write.

I am not a “born writer.” My writing sucked until I started blogging.

I am not saying my writing rocks right now. It’s not magazine quality. But it’s much better than when I started. And people always understand what I’m trying to say. I don’t use complex words.

But that doesn’t matter.

My readers appreciate my content and the value it provides. That’s the only thing that matters to me.

I don’t care if I break a few grammar rules, as long as readers understand my meaning. When I first started blogging, I tried to follow all the rules and it only restricted my writing. I took way more time to write articles and was constantly worried whether readers would rip apart my grammar.

It took time to realize that creating great content doesn’t necessarily mean writing articles in perfect English. Once I made this simple realization, my productivity shot through the roof. I was no longer scared of being a non-native writer.

The Only Reason You Are Not “Good Enough” Is Because You Believe It!

Yes, you will have to work hard to continuously improve, but you have the same shot as anyone else.

Here’s an interesting story about one of my friends.

He’s like me, a non-native writer. However, I am a computer science engineer and my friend has a Master’s in English literature.

I didn’t necessarily need to write for a living since I had a full time technical job at the time of this story. He was a freelance writer for a local newspaper which paid him approximately 5$ -10$ for a piece of published content.

When he found out I was making almost the same, and sometimes more than he was for content writing services over the web, he asked me how I was doing it.

I told him that web content writing is a hot money making opportunity online, and that if you could write decent English and find the right clients, there was good money to be made.

He said, “I am not so sure if I am good enough to write for people outside India.”

My English skills aren’t nearly as good as his, and yet he believed he wasn’t “good enough.” It’s these mental blocks that can prevent you from doing what you really want to do. My friend could make a killing writing for the web, if he chose to crash through his mental roadblock.

You can overcome the “I am not good enough mentality” forever.

Don’t overly obsess about grammar or writing style. If you try to mimic someone else, you will spend way too much time writing, and only end up with diminished results. That doesn’t mean you can produce mediocre content with terrible English and your readers will be OK with it, because they won’t.

You must have a good grip of the language. You don’t need to be an expert in it, your speaking voice is fine. Use that voice so that your writing is clear enough for readers to quickly grasp what you are trying to say without re-reading every sentence.

My articles have short paragraphs and I write in a conversational tone.

That isn’t how I used to write. I used to write in large blocks of chunky text, and my posts were far from conversational.

I’d often use words like one, person, individual, and so on instead of just saying YOU.

I took certain writing styles from other successful writers, then blended them with my writing. Now my writing reflects my personality. It’s who I am. If I tried to copy someone blindly, I doubt I would have made it more than 5 years blogging.

Start Improving Today

If you can speak, you can write. Follow these simple steps to get better:

• Understand the basics of grammar. Pay special attention to the proper use of punctuation. The Elements of Style is a must read for every writer.
• Always use spellcheck and proofread your post at least twice. You would be surprised at the number of errors you will find when proofreading your copy after taking a break.
• Read great writing blogs, analyze their writing style, and try to adopt a few of those styles to improve your posts.
• Realize that it’s OK to make mistakes. I see typos on even the best writer’s blogs.
• Write with passion and confidence. If others can do it, you can too.

Over to You:

I always like to walk the talk. This guest post is one prime example. I am pitching this to Ghost Writer Dad which is one of the finest writing blogs in the blogosphere. I am not sure if my grammar is perfect (to my knowledge it is, but I don’t know all the grammar rules myself).

Have you ever resisted pitching another person because you thought your language was not good enough? How did you overcome your internal resistance? Let me know in the comments.

Adarsh Thampy is a passionate blogger and advices small businesses on using content marketing strategies. While not doing SEO or writing, he loves to hang out on Twitter and you can follow him @conversionchamp.

Photo credit: Marie C Fields via Shutterstock