Writers are amazing.
How they can be so expressive, and not give a care if anyone they know, or are close to, could judge them for what they write.
Your words, your thoughts, even if labeled ''fiction'' are still unmistakably produced from your mind. Writing them down, articulating abstract thoughts and feelings into words, onto paper- is already a form of total exposure, your own self being the first reader, the first discoverer to your thoughts- which I find even that by itself highly intimidating.
Writing for strangers, putting it all out in the open daylight, for them to peer into something so deep, your deepest darkest secrets- the patterns, the blueprint of your mind itself, like you have absolutely nothing to hide- that is absolutely courageous.