Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach

Ralph Keyes observes in his book The Courage to Write, “The trail of literary history is littered with those who fell along the way because the anxiety of trying to write paralyzed their hand”1. Writers' Anxiety If you’ve begun to reflect on troubling, traumatic memories, you've likely encountered fears. Some of those fears are personal and some, professional. Digging for personal truths almost always leads to increased anxiety in the life of a writer. Keyes notes this causal relationship: The closer they get to painful personal truths, the more fear mounts—not just about what they might reveal but about what they might discover should they venture too deeply inside. To write well, however, that’s exactly where we must venture. Melville admired most the writers he called "divers," those who dared to plunge deep inside and report what they found. Frederick Busch thought this need for inner exploration was what made novel-writing so daring. "You go to dark places so that you can get there, steal the trophy and