What books freed you from your fear of writing?

If not in its totality, then at least a certain aspect. As in reading some scene and realizing that yes, you can do this too, in spite of being afraid of it for so long.

Not to be confused with the nobler "I shall aspire to this incredible level too!" or the pettier "good grief, people like this crap? I can do this too!" but rather the sudden loosening of internal constraints when you see a writer write what you have been afraid to write, and in such a way as to make you realize all it takes is to start typing and believe in yourself.

An example from me would be Mystery Walk by Robert McCammon. I read the opening and the hairs on the nape of my neck stood on end--I was trying to do the same things, but without the confidence. Now I knew it could be done the way I wanted it to be done, through use of skills I already possessed in one form or another.

...This happened years ago, and since then my style has change radically, but this was an important juncture in my writing journey, and Mystery Walk helped me write certain scenes, instead of being afraid them, instead of trying to "write around them".

Oh yes, undeniably invigorating to see someone find success by writing outside the box you've built for yourself, showing through personal example that it is indeed possible. I've had to try and find my way out of quite a few such boxes built by myself and for myself over the years, and not just concerning writing

Layla Nahar said:

/.../ For 14 months just thinking about writing filled me with a kind of dread. I got back to it a few months ago. I have to do a lot of mind-tricks on myself to sit down with a project, but I'm managing to get at least a paragraph down about 4 times a week (average. Might be more than that).
/.../

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Ooh, mind tricks The last time I had to do one of those to motivate myself to write better and more confidently was...yesterday. And in general, with writing fiction, I'm not a planner, I'm a planner of the pre-planning of the pre-plan for the plan. Not only do I not wade in into the water just like that, I first scout out the beach and measure the currents and watch the behavior of the local seagulls, hedgehogs, fish, and crabs, then I figure out the temperature average, and then I start building a scaffolding. Once the structure is about three stories high and half a mile wide, and protrudes into the sea, I sit in the harness, and through careful use of pulley and levels reach the shallows and very gradually lower a toe into the water. And thus the opening of Chapter 1 gets written. Then I pull the toe out, dry it, and start building another section in order to try to lower a different toe.

All this helps me feel an artificial confidence that I know what I'm doing, even when spontaneous confidence is lacking, and that's what helps me keep going. Of course, in the bits when spontaneous confidence erupts, I am suddenly a demigod for as long as it lasts. From 1 minute to 1 day, depending on the position of the neutrinos inside the orbiting white dwarfs.

But none of this would work for very long, if I couldn't find others who did similar stuff, by using techniques on par with those I can pull off, successfully. Finding books or chapters or scenes or paragraphs written that way is a major injection of fear-suppressant. Someone has already done this, it's possible, keep going!

Magnificent Bastard said:

/.../

The last time that got Really Bad I happened to be reading The Golem and the Djinni, by Helene Wecker. I can't really help mentally dissecting every book I read, so I found all kinds of small things that could've been better or different, or that I would've pointed out if I was her CP/beta — but I still loved it, and it's one of my favourite books today, imperfections and all.

It sort of reminded me that even if I don't get it perfect, or even if my readers don't see it as perfect, the thing I wrote can still affect them and they can still love it, and it can still matter... so I guess it counts. (It didn't cure me of "not [good] enough", though, I don't think anything ever will)

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Oh, I managed to get over the perfectionism pretty decisively once I realized it didn't and couldn't lead to actual perfection in my case, only to obsessive behavior and thought patterns.

In my current world view there's:
1. The impeccable level (The Great Gatsby)
2. The brilliant level (Brothers Karamazov)
3. The terrific level (The Wasp Factory)
4. The damn good level (I Am Legend, The Keep)
5. The pretty cool level (Skull Moon, Darkness on the Edge of Town)
6. The basically OK level, and so on.

I've always hovered slightly below point 6), and now, delusions of grandeur finally cast aside, am shooting for somewhere between 6) and 5), or if the muses are merciful, between 5) and 4), having realized that this is, completely and utterly, my theoretical ceiling, unless I cut off social life and family and become a mad hermit, with even this not guaranteeing more than like a 5%-10% improvement*, which isn't worth the sacrifices it entails, because the levels of "terrific" and "brilliant", not to mention "impeccable", are out of my reach whatever I do or do not do, and that's fine.

Everyone with a bit of talent and discipline can become more or less good at some sport or at playing some instrument, but not everyone can become world champions and immortal composers and that's not some great cosmic injustice but just the way things are, and does not make life any less beautiful. Complaining that one has put in so much effort and still has not turned into Beethoven (or into Jimi Hendrix, for that matter) is not very adult. And indeed, as the many faces of pop music teach us, being able to only compose and play simpleton three-chord tunes in no way precludes having some success and making people happy.

So, out of the window went perfectionism and, as you said, as long as the story has bits the cumulative impact of which raises it to a pretty cool, or even to a damn good level--mission accomplished. Now, if I had seen even a hint along the lines that giving in to the perfectionism might have led me to write the Gatsby or Karenina of today--that might have been different--but one day clearly seeing that this was not the case really, really helped to slow down and smell the flowers.

____
* Or even lower the overall level through overwriting in the most shallow and melodramatic ways that were supposed to play the role of human condition depth but failed miserably, because that's just the person I am, with these capabilities. In musical terms, when I did go for broke in the mad hermit total focus sense, while I thought I was creating a mix of jazz and classical music, I was in reality doing bottom-level synth-driven progressive rock of the vilest, most laughable kind. Better, in this case, to take a step back and work on being a quality variation of something along the lines of The Ramones and The Misfits, or Venom and Slayer, then do phony pseudo-complex stuff.
Knowing your weaknesses and working around them, instead of being in denial about them, can be beneficial, IMO.