Fear of judgment

We all must have invariably gone through fear of judgment. Although we as writers experience other types of fears, the fear of judgment seems to be the one that lingers and lurks for longer time and keeps coming. Especially for the first work out there, we get all sorts of weird anxiety moments; it could be questioning about what others might think after reading your book or it could be that a particular scene was bothering you of what others might judge you as. Or even the fear that the family members may not like certain parts of your book. While it has been a difficult one to overcome for many, there are ways to get past the fear.

1. Remember, your primary intent of writing a story. Why do you want to tell a story in the first place? There will almost always be a strong reason. Write it down in one place and keep visiting that. For example: the story was unique, the story was entertaining or that the story had to be told because it has a moral to the readers. There could be one primary reason and several others that you want to write a story for, note them down and visit that often. You will then be able to think past any fear and continue with your manuscript.
2. The other important point is that you are not writing this story because you want your friends or family to read. You want to get past; above and beyond the circle you have created, you want to reach the real readers that either benefit or get entertained reading your story or book. So, everytime you think about your close friends or family, just remember you are not writing for them, so you should not worry about what they think about you.
3. This is a work of fiction. Fiction itself means that it is NOT real. Human brain can think and produce any number of thoughts or even mix up some feelings or emotions or pick and manifest certain other behaviors into their fictitious characters. Since it is a story, a work of fiction, the characters are created by you but not you yourself. So, there is no reason to get connected to any kind of fear.

Have you experienced any type of fear or self doubt? If so, what is it and how did you overcome?