So here’s the thing no one tells you when you’re growing up and dreaming of your big creative future: The path doesn’t appear until you actually start walking.
I know. Rude.
When I was younger, I thought that once I got my journalism degree, the clouds would part, a ‘you are a writer now’ banner would drop, and I’d be welcomed into the literary elite with a glass of something expensive and a Moleskine with my name on it.
(Maybe I could have dreamt bigger, but branded stationery felt important at the time. It was 2014, after all.)
Now, not to give you any spoilers, but… yeah, that didn’t happen. What happened instead was lots of writing-adjacent things – client work, marketing copy, social content, the loooong caption on Instagram that only five people read (three of whom were my friends, and one was probably my mum).
It’s not that I didn’t want to be a writer anymore. I still love fiction with whatever’s left of my heart after renting most of it out to a snuggly little sausage dog. I just couldn’t bear the idea of wanting it too much and not being good enough. In other words, I was avoiding potential rejection.
Because what if I tried and failed? What if someone confirmed my biggest fear – that I wasn’t very good at something I loved very much?
So, I stayed in the shallow end. I worked various jobs where I mostly wrote things, sure. Useful things. Clever things. Things that got published and paid for – even though you can only imagine the level of interest I had in real-time tracking and data services for ships and vessels.
But almost never the thing that really mattered to me. Almost never the messy, personal, vulnerable writing that made me feel the most like myself.
(In my defence, I wrote quite a bit on my blog and eventually self-published a book… but I always kept it in the quiet, really. No big fuss, no buy-my-book moment. Part of me didn’t actually want people to buy it – and, God forbid, read it and reject it. That would’ve been far too real, thanks.)
And somewhere along the way, I started telling myself that maybe this was enough. I was still writing. Still creating. Still paying bills with words. Isn’t that the dream?
Except… no. Not quite.
Because deep down, I knew the difference between writing to pay the bills and writing to feel alive. And, most importantly, I knew I was talking myself out of doing something I loved simply because it’s too peopley out there.
Here’s what I’ve realised, and it’s a little embarrassing:
This whole time, I wasn’t just afraid of rejection. I was pre-rejecting myself.
You know when you were a kid and you'd break up with someone just so they couldn’t break up with you first? Unfortunately, now that we’re no longer kids… we’re still not any wiser. We do the exact same thing with our dream work. We reject it before it – and the world – has a chance to reject us.
We distance ourselves from the things we really want, because staying close feels risky. Vulnerable. Dangerous. So we make it look like our decision. “Oh no, I never really wanted to do that anyway.” It’s self-protection disguised as logic.
But the truth is, we’re really only ever fooling other people… And half the time, not even very well. Do you really think your friends can’t see through you and your excuses?
So now, I’m learning to walk the other path. The one that feels more honest, more mine. And that’s something worth writing about, if you’re ever short on ideas. Nothing helps other people connect with you like showing up as your full, unfiltered self.
Or so they say – I’m still learning here!
That’s why I’m writing this newsletter.
Because I want to learn how to be a creative publicly – not in a perfectly curated, everything-is-working kind of way, but in a real, messy, still-figuring-it-out way.
I don’t want to keep breaking up with myself and my potential before the world even has a chance to weigh in.
And let’s be honest, the world might never reject it – that fear might just be a very persistent ghost that’s been renting space in my head for too long.
I also want to reach other creatives who feel the same, and share what I’m learning along the way in the hope that it inspires someone else to stop pre-rejecting too. To choose their own path before they talk themselves out of it.
Or after.
I truly believe there’s no such thing as too late when it comes to doing something you like – and becoming someone you want to be in the process.
Because that’s how it goes, isn’t it? You become a writer by writing. (There are no banners anywhere. Nobody gets them. I’ve checked.) You become an artist by making weird, imperfect things.
You become whatever it is you want to become by saying, yep, this is a thing now, even if it’s just you in your kitchen with a laptop and a dog giving you side-eye because you forgot to take her out again.
You don’t have to be the loudest person on the internet, and you definitely don’t have to go viral. And honestly? You don’t even have to be crazy good. Doing something just for the sake of doing it is okay. It’s 2025 – we don’t even like girlbosses anymore.
Take the first step, even if it feels like no one’s watching. Especially if it feels like no one’s watching. The path will appear. And your dog will forgive you.
Eventually.
Anca x
PS: What’s your thing? The one you’re low-key avoiding because you think the world might frown — but you really, really, really want to do? Share it with me :) ↓