I first joined academia when I was 28. I had no PhD, I had never written a paper nor a grant, and now it was a fundamental part of my job.

I was terrified. Utterly frozen by the enormity of having to do something I had no idea how to do. 1/n

Also, I was the only bioinformatician in my institute. I had some good mentors and some bad mentors, but regardless they didn't know anything about my field.

When they suggested routes to publication, I used to freeze, and feel my belly roil with stress and worry 2/n

At one point, I visited my dentist. My jaw was sore. She said "You are grinding your teeth, if you don't stop doing this, we will have to give you a shield to protect them. Are you stressed?"

Was I? Jesus yes I was stressed. 3/n

Perhaps you are someone in this situation? Perhaps you know someone in this situation? I suspect it is all too common in young researchers.

Believe me, many of us have been where you are now 4/n

I'm not going to pretend my subsequent success was the result of hard work nor brilliance. More likely I have benefited from luck and privilege 5/n

But maybe it will make some people feel better knowing that others have been in the same situation and overcome it.

My first paper ( https://bmcbioinformatics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2105-6-98) was published in 2005 and has 7 citations.

Sometimes you just need to get off the starting line 6/n

it's OK to be terrified. It's OK to be frozen. Mnay of us have felt the same.

Feel free to contact me if you want someone to talk to about this.

7/n