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1) My writing sucks.

2) No one will read it.

3) I'm wasting my life by writing about it and not living it.

4) I'll die before I finish my book.

5) I'll finish my book and get 1-stars on Amazon.

6) I'll send a manuscript to my friend/agent/editor and she'll say, "try again."

7) I'll get a rare disease where I'm paralyzed and can only communicate by blinking my eyes, and then I'm going to subject my wife and children to helping me write, and I'm going to get self-conscious about my first drafts, and I'll stop writing altogether, and I'll get bedsores, and my wife will fall in love with my home health aid, and I won't even be able to kill myself like a proper writer, and they'll put me in a home and someone will turn on reality TV shows thinking they're being nice not knowing I hate - really f*cking hate - reality TV shows - hate them more than I hate bedsores - and I'll spend my days crying silently, slurping nutrients from a tube staring up at a white drop-ceiling wishing I could escape into my stories or at the very least have my hospital bed rolled outside so I could feel the wind.

We all have these fears. And they will never go away.

- Fredrick Marion

A former columnist and staff writer at the Palm Beach Post and Rocky Mount Telegram, Fredrick Marion now writes on napkins, blogs and sidewalks. He earned an English degree from Wright State University, and he's hard at work on his first children's novel with representation by The Bent Agency. He also writes a weekly email newsletter full of writing tips, which you can find at www.daytonlit.com.