Blogging is Terrifying

I've been meaning to write more things. Not just any things, but meaningful things. So I sat down, fired up my text editor, forked over $29 for a domain I'll regret in a year, and got to it. But all the preparation in the world can't overcome one thing.

Blogging is terrifying.

Really, it is. It's terrifying to put yourself and your thoughts out there, I mean, what if people actually read this post? What if I make some sort of grammatical mistake; or use a semicolon incorrectly? What if my sentences are too short? What if I say something wrong, and someone comes along and corrects me? Even worse, what if people like it?

What if people like it so much that they read my other posts? What if they like those and share them with their followers? Now even more people will read my stuff, more people to find errors in my writing. What if something I write really strikes a chord with someone, and makes their day better? What if they rely on me to make their day better all the time?

How am I supposed to deal with that kind of pressure?

What if they click through to my projects? What if they like them? What if they use one of those projects at work, and it rm -rf's their system? Code that I wrote, what would happen? What if they read the source code to those projects, and see all the silly formatting errors and awkward variable names I use? What if they learn from it, and use that knowledge in their own projects?

What if they share my projects, and they get noticed by someone important? What if that person organizes a conference and wants me to speak at it? Me, speaking at a conference, I can't do that! What if I do it anyway? What if people think my talk is interesting, and I get asked to speak at more conferences?

What if someone I meet at a conference approaches me to write a book? What if I make a mistake in that book, and a few hundred copies contain that mistake! A few hundred minds spoiled by my missing semicolon, or my misunderstanding about how variable hoisting works. What if they hoist incorrectly at work!? What if the book is good, and they ask me to write a second?

What if it all works out? Then what will I worry about?