I don't know if this is something anyone else has said, but it's the mantra I live by when my doubts start to nibble at me: I don't have to make it perfect. I just have to make it. I spent a lot of my life, up until about a year ago, wanting to be a writer but letting my fears decide for me that I may as well not bother because I suck and I'm dumb and I have nothing to say and people will laugh, etc, etc - all the same fears. Yet the drive to create persisted, despite my doubts' best efforts. So I resolved to create, because I have stories in me, and if I don't tell them, who will? Every time I worry it's not perfect, I remind myself that it doesn't have to be. If I don't make it, perfect or not, it won't exist at all, and that's not something I can accept.

This brings me so much joy.