Let’s give a big round of applause to my friend Bill Boulden. Bill is creating an electronic album that’s unique to every customer. At the conclusion of his successful Kickstarter, Bill has announced some familiar names who will be working on the album with him.

Chris Sabat, who voiced Vegeta and Piccolo in Dragon Ball Z. Brina Palencia, the voice of Black Butler’s Ciel Phantomhive. Laura Bailey, whom you might know as Tohru Honda in Fruits Basket.

These aren’t small names in the voice acting field, and they’re some of the biggest names in the English anime scene. Bill’s had plenty of people asking, “How did you do that?”

Bill laid the foundation for this kind of risk taking in 2011, when he started a parody rap group about Magic: The Gathering called Tha Gatherin’ alongside M:TG hall of famer Patrick Chapin.

“I asked him to join me in making a magic rap album just by sending him a Facebook message asking if he wanted to,” Bill told me. “It was my first taste of realizing famous people were people like me who wanted to do neat things.”

You’ve never heard of Bill before, and neither had any of these people he reached out to. But that didn’t stop him from asking the question, “Would you like to be part of this project?”

Last week, I offered free consultations to newsletter subscribers. Ten people took me up on it, and I’ve talked to seven already. What I’ve learned so far is that a lot of people struggle with what comes naturally to Bill. You’re talented writers and passionate fans, but many of you struggle with self confidence when it comes to putting your work out there on a blog, or in front of the editor of a blog or media outlet, or to reach out to a personal hero for an interview.

We all worry that our best isn’t good enough. But maybe you should just go for it.

“I need to have a big blog in order to interview big names.” Wrong. In 2011, I reached out to a studio for a blog post about voice actors and got an interview with Yu Gi Oh’s Dan Green. It was sort of an accident, but still! I had 5,000 monthly readers and they still. said. yes.

“I need to at least have experience to get an interview with somebody important.” Also wrong. My first major byline in my journalistic career was my Kotaku interview with Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu. (By the way, I got the Kotaku internship because I told them I had talked to Uematsu at an anime convention and would write it up if they picked me.)

“I need professional portfolio pieces to apply for professional a job.” Writing is not one of those “entry-level” jobs that incomprehensibly requires years of experience first. I got my first byline in Forbes (and won a contest) by sending in clips from Otaku Journalist.

What Bill does is a little different than journalism. For one thing, he’s paying voice actors for their time, while reporters do not pay for interviews (though people are usually still happy to give them because of the free publicity). But the method is the same.

Just ask.

Deal with your feelings of self doubt after you hit send.

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This post originally ran as my weekly newsletter. If you subscribed to my newsletter, you would have been able to read this post fifteen hours ago. Your call.

Art by Beth Zyglowicz.

About three years ago, I was riding the metro when it hit me—a lump in my throat; fluttering heartbeat; difficult, irregular breath.

John noticed immediately. “Are you OK?” he asked.

“Just hold my hand,” I managed, reaching for his. Mine was trembling.

Medically, there wasn’t anything wrong with me during this episode. I was having what anxiety sufferers call a panic attack, a sudden and intense episode of distress.

Ever since I was very young, I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression. Something like a bad test grade could overwhelm me, bringing each of my perceived failures to the surface of my consciousness, as raw and painful as if they’d just occurred. It could lead to a panic attack, or simply days or weeks where I felt like I was going through the motions, totally numb.

I got my anxiety and depression under control when I began treating my Cognitive Behavioral Therapy sessions like lectures. For a while I completely forgot about my diagnosis, until I started freelancing on my own three years ago, when it came back in full force.

As mental illnesses, anxiety and depression are deeply stigmatized. Sufferers and even former sufferers, like me, don’t often talk about it. If you don’t already believe it, I’m not going to be the one to convince you that these are real disorders caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. And when you’re trying to start a career for yourself as a writer, these high-running emotions can be devastating and have very real effects on your work and life.

Though nothing will ever completely remove that chemical imbalance, I call myself a former sufferer because anxiety and depression do not affect the way I live my life. However, I know very well what it feels like when they do, and if you find yourself in that dark place, let me validate that what you’re feeling is very real.

Here are some suggestions for dealing with mental illness, from one writer to another.

You are not a problem. But you need tools to solve your problems.

When my doctor told me and my parents that I needed to find a therapist to help me work through my depression, I felt like the world’s biggest failure. Enrolling in therapy meant I was the problem. I was not very smart.

It wasn’t until college that I realized that therapy wasn’t about fixing me, it was about offering solutions to the problems around me. I started bringing a notebook with me to take notes, draw diagrams, and draft emotional “scripts” I could follow in stressful situations. Many of these scripts have become almost reflexive. When I feel overwhelmed, I write a to-do list and then rank it by urgency. When I am anxious about a problem, I write a list of possible solutions. After my panic attack, I began taking a journal on the metro and writing lists to stay calm. Yes, all my coping mechanisms involve writing lists, but this is advice for writers I’m giving here.

You are not broken. You do not need fixing. But your problems absolutely do. Think of therapy or doctor-prescribed medication as tools in your arsenal toward combatting depression.

You can’t write from too high or too low.

One of my favorite pieces of advice about writing comes from Cheryl Strayed. In response to a writer who felt alternately full of herself and guilty, Strayed wrote:

“You’re up too high and down too low. Neither is the place where we get any work done. We get the work done on the ground level.”

Depression can be like a domino stack. One setback feels like a million, like if you get one article rejected you’re never going to find work again. Writing while feeling this way is going to lead to work tinged by your own self-doubt, if you manage to write anything at all.

It’s funny how we think the best writers are depressed, because I’ve never managed to get anything done during a depressive episode. Give yourself the time and space you need to write from a neutral emotional level.

Life first, work second.

Which brings me to this—your work is going to suck if you haven’t been taking care of yourself. You need to build a life around your work, not the other way around.

Probably that means a morning routine where you get up and dressed at a reasonable time, eat something, go to your workspace, even if you work from home. Maybe that means doing something to move your body every day, if being active is what balances your brain chemicals (I find it works for me). Maybe that means leaving the house and spending time with friends.

When I had my last panic attack, I was working all the time. I did not leave my house often. Other than watching TV, I did not have hobbies. Now, I make sure to go on a walk or run every day. I signed up for a class and joined a club so I could see more people in a week than my husband and the grocery store cashier. Usually, I forget that I’m living with depression until a mental health awareness effort comes up, which is thankfully more and more often.

You are not your illness.

Why is it OK to label yourself a depressed person, when depressive episodes are temporary? It’s like labeling yourself a broken-legged person. While depression and anxiety can feel terminal, do not use them to define yourself.

I used to think I might “lose” part of myself if I ever stopped feeling depressed. Maybe my writing ability would go first (all writers are depressed, aren’t they?) or my sense of humor. But surprise, I did not become some kind of plastic unfeeling robot just because I began employing coping mechanisms that made me stop feeling miserable all the time.

You are awesome. I know this, because you’re reading my blog. You are a writer brimming with novels and essays and articles and reviews. And no matter what your anxiety or depression is telling you, your ideas are great. Put them out into the world like they deserve.

Photo by Ryan Melaugh