How to deal with your shyness as a writer?

One of the things that most of the talented writers don't want to talk about that much is how vulnerable and how shy they are. It's not fun to talk about how fragile you are as a person and that you're not always in charge of yourself.

In reality, no matter how fearless your favorite writer might be, there's a pretty good chance that they're actually really shy. Being shy and sensitive is what gives them the edge over the rest of us mortal writers. 

In any case, here are five important things that you should keep in mind if you happen to be shy as a person. These are the things that at least in my opinion will help you and will make your life at least a little bit better:

1) Try to appreciate your strengths.

Even though it's understandable that you're sometimes going to stress about your shyness, worrying about it too much isn't good or healthy either. You shouldn't think too much about the 'restrictions' that come with being a sensitive person.

Instead, try to pay more attention to your strengths than to your weaknesses. Try pay attention to the fact that you're someone who understands how the world works and who knows what makes us human beings tick.

Try to find comfort in the fact that you're better at observing things than the average person and that you're able to figure out many of those precious little things that matter. These are the qualities that should define you as a person and as a writer.

2) Keep yourself busy as a writer.

Very likely the best thing that you can ever do as a writer is to keep yourself immersed in what you're doing. When you have ongoing projects or steady writing routines, you might forget that you have your 'limititations'.

As long as you'll keep yourself busy with your writing habits and routines, pretty quickly you'll manage to notice certain changes. These new routines will make you more confident and will make you feel better about yourself as a writer.

Speaking from my own experience, it genuinely helps when you write articles on a blog on a weekly basis. When you manage to press the publish button more than two hundred times, it's bound to make you at least a little bit less shy.

3) Have a support group that lets you write.

It's always a good thing if you have the chance and the time to concentrate on writing and that you don't have to worry too much about other things. It's an ideal situation if you don't have to do things that you're not good at.

The very best television writers use almost all of their energy and concentration on writing scripts. Their only job is to write quality material because they have an advantage over the rest of the field out there.

For example, South Park's Trey Parker is known for being a very shy person. He's not known for being good at arguing with the suits or with handling confrontations, so he leaves those aspects of the show business for others (Matt Stone) to handle.

4) Take care of yourself and your health.

Many of the shy and sensitive people in show business abuse drugs and don't take enough care of themselves. They have problems but don't try to fix their issues the right way and instead end up trying some bad things.

If you need help with your problems, it's better to get professional help instead of using illegal drugs to alleviate your symptoms. It's much better to be in therapy and take SSRI:s than it's to treat problems with alcohol, coke, or marijuana.

In my case, I try to do moderate to heavy one hour exercises at least five times a week. I also try to eat relatively healthy stuff, I try to sleep well and I take a small dose of an antidepressant to keep my mind as balanced as it can be.

5) Don't give up too easily. 

Finally, setbacks and failures are especially difficult and painful for shy people to handle. It's not fun when things don't go your way, even though you tried your best and actually managed to take (yikes) chances.

Yet, as far as I'm concerned, you shouldn't give up too easily as a writer. You should keep going, because there's really not that much quality stuff out there and because most people in the show business simply don't have what it takes to entertain us.

So instead of getting too depressed about what happened, try to keep in mind that you can try your luck in the future too. It's not over and there's a good chance that next time things are going to get better for you.