The Year I Almost Gave Up Writing
How writing anxiety, self-doubt, and one unexpected moment led to the creation of Pen & Persistence.
A vulnerable writer is an authentic writer, or so I’ve been told. In reality, that vulnerability can also sometime lead to anxiety, imposter syndrome a fear of failure. After publishing my first personal essay in 2023, The Blue Duffel Bag, in which I shared part of my story for the first time, I descended into a dark abyss of self-doubt that made me question my purpose, my creativity, and even whether I should give up writing altogether. That is, until a random Instagram post changed everything.
I can’t remember how many hours I spent staring at a blank screen, the cursor blinking while my fingers refused to produce anything but random words in a mishmash of sentences that made no sense. All the while I questioned my sanity for even thinking I can write:
“Who are you to call yourself a writer?”
“Why do you think anyone would want to read your story?”
“You had one claim to fame—it’s not like it’ll happen again.”
“A handful of published articles don’t make you a writer.”
What began as self-shaming during my sacred early-morning writing hours soon spiraled into days of self-loathing, depressing thoughts and creative paralysis. I tried everything: long walks, journaling, exercise, movies, reading, but nothing helped. The more I struggled, the further I retreated from writing altogether.
I’d experienced writer’s block before, but this was different. I had plenty of ideas; I just couldn’t get them onto the page.
The worst came one night in December 2025, when I was invited to present an award at the Detroit Writing Room Awards Ceremony. As I stepped onto the stage at The Detroit Public Theatre to say a few words about the winner, I froze. The words disappeared. Seconds felt like hours beneath the spotlight. My heart raced. I had never experienced stage fright before, yet all I could do was blurt out a few awkward words before stepping aside and counting down the seconds until I could leave.
The days after that event were a nightmare. I had nowhere to turn. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. All I could do was pack away my notebooks and anything writing-related and focus on my day job, determined to put all that writing nonsense behind me for good. Then one night as I was doom scrolling on Instagram, a message popped up from a well-known writer describing the symptoms of writing anxiety: avoidance, perfectionism, negative self-talk, brain fog, feelings of inadequacy, even physical symptoms like rapid heartbeat and muscle tension.
Every word felt painfully familiar.
As I researched writing anxiety, I discovered it often stems from the pressure to produce meaningful, high-quality work. In my case, the symptoms began to appear not too longer after publishing The Blue Duffel Bag, while trying to write more essays, work on my memoir, and do it all perfectly—whatever “perfect” even meant.
Once I identified the problem, I began searching for solutions—not through traditional therapy, but through books, extensive journaling, and learning to slow down. I searched for comfort among the pages. The books that helped me most included Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, The Courage to Write by Ralph Keyes, and The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins. I also read and re-read the classics and memoirs by immigrants like myself.
Slowly, the tools I learned to deal with my anxiety began paying off in ways I never expected. And later this month, I’ll share more about where that journey led me.
In the meantime, I decided to heed the words of Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts, and “make my mess my message.” What surprised me most during that period was how isolating writing anxiety felt. Writers are often taught how to critique work, but rarely how to talk about the emotional toll of creating it.
So, I reached out to Stephanie Steinberg at the Detroit Writing Room, and pitched her the idea of starting a “support group” of sorts for writers. Thus, Pen & Persistence was born.
Pen & Persistence is a space for writers to come together not to workshop or critique, but to support one another through the doubts, anxieties, rejections and to celebrate the small victories. The group meets in-person at Michigan Central and on zoom in-between meetings.
Being a writer is both a calling and a choice. Most writers will admit they dread writing, but they do it anyway because there’s nothing more agonizing than living with an untold story. The cliched images of a writer hunched over a typewriter, smoke billowing from a cigarette or pipe, a whiskey or two nearby, à la Ernest Hemingway, are not an exaggeration of the effort it takes to “bleed” words onto the page. But sometimes, the bravest thing a writer can do is return to the page anyway and persist.