Self-confidence, for me, has always been in short supply. I’m sure there’s a myriad of reasons for this, but that’s a crisis for another day.

As long as I can remember, I’ve been a writer. This is, of course, including an elementary-aged me having the best Christmas of my entire life at around six or seven years old, when my parents, low on funds, gave me a large plastic bin full of office supplies. These office supplies weren’t children’s journals, coloring books, and a few packs of Crayola crayons. I’m talking a 60-quart plastic bin filled with pencils, pens, markers, white printer paper, color printer paper, rolls and rolls of tape, a stapler and staples, boxes of envelopes, scissors…. and probably even more that I can’t remember.

I suppose a typical child would be disappointed at the relatively few traditional Christmas gifts, but I’ve never been a normal person, I suppose. Even today, nearly 30 years later, I think back at this gift and it is by far the best gift I’ve ever received based on the sheer magnitude of joy I experienced using up all those precious materials. Aside from all the coloring, paper snowflakes, and envelopes stuffed with fake money so that my stuffed animals could pay their bills, I would also staple as many pages together as I could and write and illustrate my own stories. These little books ranged from fantasy to love stories to comedies that would only be funny to the child who wrote them.

This lifelong love for writing is probably fairly typical in authors, published or not. Many go on to publish eventually in some form or fashion, and I imagine there are a lot of us who don’t ever share our work. We’re all still writers at the end of the day. But I always wanted to be one of those who shared their work, who conveyed their ideas in a way that interested other people and made them think. Or, maybe, just one who entertains someone else for a brief period of time. I aim to please, you could say.

And here’s where the sneaky self-confidence issue comes in. I have a pathological fear of embarrassment. Being an artist in the public eye requires thick skin, a trait I do not possess. And, if I’m really honest with myself, I fear that I’ve held myself back for years and years due to the fear of failure; an unfortunate, if not uncommon, occurrence.

Cut to the recent creative writing class I took with my husband. Although I didn’t learn anything new about writing, I enjoyed the people and the time with my husband. There was one thing that the teacher did give me, however, which was the opportunity to publish a story. He introduced me to Duotrope, which connects writers with publishers looking for submissions. I thought it might be kind of fun to just submit something and see what happens. I excitedly created an account and chose a story to submit. I found a podcast that sounded interesting, fit my genre and story length, and even paid for the stories they accept. The acceptance rate, however, is fairly low. Now, this is to be expected; publications that pay are highly desirable and receive tons of submissions. But while I knew this logically, my body just panicked. What if I’m rejected? Obviously, that means I’m a terrible writer and how embarrassing would that be! (Ridiculous, I know.)

My nine-year-old came into my office in the middle of my panic and asked what I was doing. I told her I was nervous about submitting a story I’d written to this podcast for scary stories. She wanted to read it. I elected to read it aloud to her instead, and she stood quietly and solemnly listened to every word. When I finished the last sentence, she sighed and commented on the ending and how it surprised her. She told me it was very good and I should submit it.

“Thank you,” I said, “I don’t know if I should send it, though. I’m just really nervous they won’t publish it.”

“Well, if they say no, they have bad taste in stories.”

She left quietly and I sent in the story.