I want to talk to you today about something so many of you have written to me about. “Lorna, I have this story in my heart. I can see it. I can practically feel it. But every time I sit down to write it… I freeze.”

And if that’s you, I want you to know — you are not broken. You are not behind. And you don’t need to worry that somehow you’re not a real writer. There is a very simple reason this happens, and once you see it, I promise it loses a little bit of its power over you.

You can watch the YouTube video or keep reading below…

 

So lets dive a little deeper into this topic about being afraid to begin. Go ahead and grab your tea, get comfortable, and let’s talk about it — and what we can do instead.

TIP ONE: Where the Fear Comes From

Let’s start at the beginning. Literally — let’s go back to when you began.

Think back to elementary school. Do you remember the first time you wrote a story and handed it in? Maybe it was three sentences long. Maybe you drew a picture to go with it because the words felt easier when there was a picture there to lean on.

And then… it came back to you with red marks on it.

Spelling corrected. Grammar circled. Maybe a comment like “good effort” — which, even as a child, you understood was not really a compliment.

We were taught, very early, that writing is something to get right. That there’s a correct way to do it, and an incorrect way, and someone with a red pen is going to let us know which one we did.
I was fearful when I first started writing 15 years ago. I kept telling my husband I wanted to write fiction “someday.”

He asked me, “Why wait? Why not do it now?” I told him, “Because I’m not good enough.” He reminded me that writing is a skill, not much different from playing the piano — which I’d been doing since I was 5 years old. Writing takes practice, just like anything else.

He encouraged me to try.

I realized I was letting fear hold me back. And I believe fear of not being good enough in part came from elementary school years but also partly from others I looked up to in my life as a child who discouraged my creativity.

Therefore, the voice in my head of “your not good enough” buried itself in the subconscious and we carried it forward as if it were fact.

So of course, all these years later, it was still there.

So I wrote 2 historical romance books under my author name Lorna Faith. But writing was still a struggle…. That fear of “getting it right” and worry — meant that I couldn’t give myself permission to write freely.

It wasn’t until I wrote my first billionaire sweet romance — which was a fairytale retelling billionaire sweet romance, that I allowed myself to write a story that was pure fun and joy. And guess what? My writing shifted— from cautious and careful — to joyful and free.

I wanted to share a little of my writing story with you.

Maybe you can relate to the feeling of being judged when you are writing? Somehow feeling unworthy or not good enough.

Perhaps, when you sit down to write your sweet romance — your hero, your heroine, that little spark of chemistry you’ve been imagining — some small, quiet part of you braces for the red pen. Even though no one is grading you. Even though there is no teacher standing over your shoulder.

That fear isn’t really about your talent. It’s a habit. It’s an old, worn-in groove in your mind that says: words on a page get judged.

And here’s what I want you to really sit with — that groove was formed when you were seven, or nine, or eleven years old. You are not seven anymore. But the fear doesn’t know that. It just knows the pattern.

So when you feel that hesitation before you start typing… that’s not proof you can’t write. That’s just an old echo. And once you can name it as an echo, instead of the truth, it gets so much easier to write right your story.

IF any of that resonates with you today OR if you’ve been sitting on a sweet romance idea, waiting until you feel “ready” or “good enough” — I want you to take this as encouragement today. You don’t need permission from anyone else. You already have everything you need to begin.

And if you’d love a little encouragement and a simple, step-by-step path to plot that very first sweet romance so you’re not staring at a blank page wondering where to start — you can learn more about my New Sweet Romance Mini-Course(plus get 70% Off until midnight July 5, 2026) HERE. 

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TIP TWO: Writing as Anticipation, Not Obligation

Now here’s where I want to gently turn your whole idea of writing upside down.

What if writing wasn’t about getting it right? What if it was about savoring something?

I want you to think about your imagination for a moment. Right now, somewhere in your mind, you have a hero. Maybe he’s standing in a doorway, rain behind him. Maybe your heroine just looked up and their eyes met for the very first time, and there’s that flutter — you know the one.

That image already exists in you. It’s already delicious. You’re already enjoying it, right now, just thinking about it.

Writing is simply the act of taking that image — that feeling — and setting it down so someone else can feel it too.

I love to think of it like this: imagine you’re holding a bow and arrow, and right there, at the tip of the arrow, you’ve attached the exact picture in your mind — the doorway, the rain, the eyes meeting. And when you write the sentence that captures it… when the words land just right… it’s like releasing that arrow and watching it hit the bullseye.

That feeling? That little thrill when a sentence does exactly what you wanted it to do? That’s not a bonus. That *is* the writing process. Your brain genuinely enjoys this. It is wired to enjoy creating story — we’ve told stories around fires for as long as we’ve been human. This isn’t a skill you’re missing. It’s a delight you’re allowed to have.

So instead of sitting down and asking, “How do I write this correctly?” — try asking, “What do I get to enjoy right now?”

What does she see when she walks into that room? What does his voice sound like when he says her name for the first time?

You’re not laboring over a page. You’re savoring a daydream and simply letting it spill onto the paper.

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TIP THREE: You Don’t Have to Make This Hard

I think — and I say this with so much love — we make writing far more complicated than it needs to be.

So many beginning writers tell me, “I don’t think I have any talent for this.” Or, “Somebody once told me I wasn’t a good writer, and I believed them.”

I want to ask you something. Who told you that? Was it a teacher having a hard day? A relative who didn’t understand creative writing? A stranger on the internet who’s never written a story themselves?

Whoever it was — they were not the final word on your creativity. They were one voice, at one moment, and you’ve carried it around for far too long.

Here’s the truth: you already have a story inside you. You don’t have to invent it from nothing. You don’t have to force it. You simply need to get quiet enough to *listen* for it.

Close your eyes for a second sometime today. Ask yourself: what do I see? Not what *should* I write. Not what will sell. Just — what do I see?

A small-town bakery. A grumpy rancher. A second-chance romance at a class reunion. Whatever it is — there it is. That’s your starting point.

Writing, at its heart, is not invention. It’s translation. You are simply translating what’s already glowing in your imagination onto the page, in your own words, in your own voice. That’s all it’s ever been.

So if you’ve been telling yourself “I can’t write” — I’d gently challenge you to replace that with something truer: “I haven’t yet given myself permission to just see and say what’s already there.”

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TIP FOUR: Perfectionism Is the Real Writer’s Block

Now let’s talk about the biggest obstacle of all, the one I see trip up almost every beginning romance writer, myself included, years ago.

We believe, somewhere deep down, that our first words need to be good. Not just good — *right*. And so before we’ve even written a single page, we’re already editing it in our heads. We delete the sentence before we’ve even finished typing it.

I remember this so clearly from when I started. I believed that almost everything I put on the page was going to be bad. And looking back, I think that belief came from the very same place we talked about earlier — somewhere, at some point, somebody made me feel that my writing wasn’t good enough. And I carried that into every blank page after.

But here’s what I’ve learned, and what I want you to hear today: perfectionism is the number one cause of writer’s block. Not lack of talent. Not lack of ideas. Instead it’s fear of making mistakes — aka Perfectionism.

We want to write the perfect sentence the very first time we write it. And friend… that is simply not how this works. Not for me. Not for any author you admire. Not for anyone.

Writing is a skill that is built through practice, the same way you’d build any other skill. The first time you ever cooked a meal, it probably wasn’t restaurant quality. The first time you rode a bike, you probably wobbled. We accept that with almost everything else in life — except writing, for some reason, we expect mastery on attempt number one.

So here is what I want to encourage you to do.

Write your first draft boldly.  Let it be messy. Let it have typos and clunky sentences and dialogue that doesn’t quite work yet. Let yourself scribble the story out quickly, almost recklessly, just to get the shape of it down. Have fun while you do it — actually have fun. Laugh at your own bad sentences if you need to. They are not permanent. They are clay, not stone. You can shape them later.

Your first draft’s only job is to exist. That’s it. It doesn’t have to be good. It just has to be *there*, so that the better version has something to be built from.

If this is your very first sweet romance story — I am so happy for you. I mean that. There is something so special about a first story, and I don’t want you to spend it gripped with fear. I want you to spend it the way you’d spend a really good daydream… with joy. With curiosity. With that little thrill of the arrow hitting the target, again and again, sentence by sentence.

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So if any of these thoughts resonated with you today — if you’ve been sitting on a sweet romance idea, waiting until you feel “ready” or “good enough” — I hope you found this blogpost encouraging. You don’t need permission from anyone else. You already have everything you need to begin.

And if you’d love a little extra support, a clear, step-by-step path for plotting that very first sweet romance so you’re not staring at a blank page wondering where to start — I’d love to help you with simple, step-by-step help inside my mini course, Write With Me: Write Your First Sweet Romance. I built it for exactly this moment you’re in right now. Learn more HERE.

But however you choose to begin — with the course, or just with you and a blank page and that image in your imagination — please, just begin. Let your first draft be brave and a little messy and full of joy.

Until then — happy writing.:)