1. You’ve never taken on something this big/important.
2. You don’t think you can do it alone.
3. You’re not sure if your idea is “good enough.”
4. Every time you think about starting, you feel overwhelmed. What if it’s too hard? What if you can’t do it?
5. The idea needs to be “perfect” — otherwise you’ll “waste time” writing words you may never publish.
6. You’re a chronic procrastinator, and/or you haven’t set a “start date” — a reverse deadline, if you will.
7. You’re convinced you don’t know how.
8. You don’t want to fail.
9. You feel like you’re not a good enough writer to take on such a big idea/project. (Yet.)
10. What if it’s already been done?
11. You have too many other things going on and can’t seem to get it all under control (if that’s even possible).
12. Honestly? You’re sort of terrified that you might actually … succeed.
All that being said (written), guess what? You CAN start your dream project, right here, right now. All you have to do is start it. It doesn’t have to be perfect or make total sense, there doesn’t even have to be a plan in place. Once you start writing, I promise — everything gets much easier. It’s still hard, don’t get me wrong. But nothing, in my experience, is harder than getting across the starting line.
YOU CAN DO IT!
Meg is the creator of Novelty Revisions, dedicated to helping writers put their ideas into words. She is a staff writer with The Cheat Sheet, a freelance editor and writer, and a 10-time NaNoWriMo winner. Follow Meg on Twitter for tweets about writing, food and nerdy things.
Meg Dowell Writes 
The chances are that it won’t be a perfect first draft. If it was that easy, everyone would be doing it right? The thing is, you can’t edit or refine something that isn’t there. Failing before you even start…