Don’t ask yourself if your voice deserves to be heard more than others’ voices.

Writing isn’t a contest.

Your voice deserves to be heard. Full stop. Other voices also deserve to be heard. If you constantly question if your voice is as important or more important than others’, you’ll end up either without humility, or more likely, struggling to write at all.

Bonus: When you remove competition, you’ll see other writers as allies, coworkers, and friends. Remove the competitive mindset, and get ready to learn from each other and celebrate everyone’s successes.

When you share your story, you give others permission to share their stories too.

You remind us our voices matter and that we don’t need permission to use them.

Recently, I wrote an essay for Fearless She Wrote about fearfully deleting a story after misogynist trolls mocked it on Twitter, then coming through the experience stronger and braver.

I received one of my favorite comments ever, from Janice Warren:

You have come beyond the fear place and proved to a novice like me that it is possible to write through it and face down the jackals, delete but still write more. You have testified to the truth. That isn’t what trolls and name-callers are doing. I hope to take my place here with you inspiring women soon.

Our bravery is raw, contagious, inspirational.

Sometimes we inspire with prose so gorgeous our readers hear cartoon angels singing. But sometimes we inspire just by admitting we get afraid too. Sometimes we inspire just by continuing to put ourselves out there, by proving it’s possible to overcome self-doubt and imposter syndrome.

Underlying everything I write is this: If my voice is worthy, so is yours.

I am vulnerable; you can be too. I deserve to be heard; so do you.