The End of Civilization as We Know It :
On getting out of your own way when you write… and overcoming fear:
Exercise: If the number one obstacle to creative writing is fear of failure, it is time to give this fear a voice. Imagine that you have written something really, really terrible, just as you may have feared you would. Tell of some of the dire consequences that have befallen you as a result. Go ahead and exaggerate as much as you can. Your short story is so incredibly bad that your wife leaves you. The poem police have arrested you and you are about to stand trial. Your lousy writing has precipitated a guerrilla war in some obscure Eastern European nation, and seismic activity has been reported in several Pacific islands. There will be a march on Washington to protest your brutal murder of the English language in your attempts to write creatively. Even muggers and rapists run from you on the street because of the sheer awfulness of your writing.
Have fun with this exercise. Make yourself laugh with it. Then step back and read it, and realize that the fear you are experiencing really is this silly. If you write badly, the only person who has to know is you. You can keep your writing private until you get better at it. Everybody who learns something new stumbles at first. Most of the time, the world doesn't end, even if we have the gall to write bad.
And if this doesn't put it all into perspective, then there is NO hope for you and you just don't have what it takes to hack it as a writer.