Self-Consciousness.

Sometimes when writing about the... I dunno, the magical earth ponies of the hidden elf forest city... I stop and look at what I've written, and I think:
"Why the hell am I writing about the magical earth ponies of the hidden elf forest city?"
And then all sorts of negative thoughts flitter through my head. Which, you know, is understandable but also completely stupid. You can worry about people thinking badly of you after you've actually written the story, but you shouldn't be concerning yourself with what other people think while you're trying to write it. You should just write the stories, even when you broach subjects that are uncomfortable, hard to write about, or downright crazy.
Sometimes, it really is hard not to be self-conscious about your writing. To want to follow the formulaic, the basics, the basic layout and nothing else: I mean, how many people want to read about... I dunno, a polyamorous relationship? I don't mean a wild threesome I mean an actual just plain relationship, just with three people. Because A, that's not normal, and B, how dare you trash the idea it's nothing but a perverted sex fest and ruin all these fantasies?
There's a whole bunch of C through Z points but I'm too tired to list anything else. Anyway, the trick is to take away the demonization, make it seem more natural and... concentrate on the things that people can relate to, or the goals most of us want to achieve ourselves. With the former example, stuff like... how important trust is, openness and honesty, actual little relationship ticks. You know, kind of like how I always put on coffee, and Luna's always hitting me.
Well, I guess that could be called abuse, too. But. Loving abuse.
Which kind of leads me into the point about. How it's hard not to be self-conscious when your characters say something stupid or tasteless. Well, you know what, if it suits the story, you can't have... Redneck Rage, the angriest, ignorantest pony in Hillponyville say:
"We don't like yer kind 'round here, you homosexually-inclined person!"
He kind of has to say:
"We don't like yer kind 'rond here, you heathen faggot!"
Or something else nasty. Yes, some ponies will get all offended when one of your characters in a story makes a tasteless joke or says something stupid or you know, is generally just an idiot. But your characters are not (all) a reflection on you: there really are people who think the absolutely stupidest things on this world, and who make jokes about... well, things we shouldn't really make jokes about. And there are perfectly good people with perfectly horrid senses of humor. You shouldn't try and inch around presenting that, because most people aren't going to apply how your characters behave to you yourself.
Unless you make it really obvious that's you. So you know. If you don't like something, then don't make everyone else hate it, too.
But in short. Even if you're writing about magical earth ponies of the hidden elf forest... stop worrying about it and just write. It's hard not to be self-conscious about your writing, but try and let that go, and just work on the story and do the best you can with it. I believe there's no such thing as a dumb idea: stories just end up dumb when we don't write it out in the right way, and the first step to getting things right is always just writing the story, the way it wants to be written.


~Scrivener Blooms