Doubts

Don't worry about being confident enough - just prepare yourself a thick skin and be ready to recognise that other people can easily make the mistake of not recognising how brilliant you really are. From there you can sit back, relax and look to see if what anyone says has something useful to you in it.

The big difficulty is not getting slammed but not getting too happy about heaps of praise. The "getting it wrong" can be just as much an achievement of those that praise as those that criticise.

The worst thing is no response at all.

David

do you mean when you are transcribing from longhand ms to digital or that you find a difference when writing between methods of writing?

Transcribing is an absolute pain - so, as far as possible, I try to avoid it.

I think that it is such a mind grinding exercise that it is almost bound to throw up doubts. Another problem that I always struggle to avoid is that when transcribing i can "start to improve". This can be very good - but it can also take things horrendously off track. I try to discipline myself to make the copy almost exactly and to make notes about additional ideas seperately (or sometimes as footnotes0 for future reference. Sometimes I achieve this - a little bit...

Wrining by different methods.

I know that I can write much faster with a pen on paper - not that I can always read it later... :-( However, that initial speed is completely counteracted by having to transcribe - with all its issues. So I tend to try to only use a keyboard.

If we think about it humans have been using one form or another for scratching down information for centuries while keyboards only stem from somewhere in the nineteenth century.

As to feelings being right...

It is certainly good to have reasonable doubts.

This begs the question of what is reasonable.

Then again we are all and each of us dealing with our own personalities... And one thing is for sure - when it comes to self doubt we are unlikely to win for certain. Which is better? A bluster through or a timid withdrawal? Surely we need not just to plot a middle course but to allow ourselves a middle (and fair) way.

All that we need to do then is to work out at which point on the spectrum are we in the middle and being fair?

The first thing to do is to write. The next thing is to find considerate people who will take a look at it and give you an honest response... But it is useful to them to be clear about what sort of response you are looking for.

Another thing to do is to toughen your hide for criticism. While the thing to not do is to expect to fail. Failure can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Anyway. enough waffling...

I would say "Go for it" and see what you can achieve.

Hope this helps.

David