Intro:
Well, hey there, Writer. Welcome to The Resilient Writers Radio Show. I'm your host, Rhonda Douglas. And this is the podcast for writers who want to create and sustain a writing life they love.
Because let's face it, the writing life has its ups and downs, and we want to not just write, but also to be able to enjoy the process so that we'll spend more time with our butt-in-chair getting those words on the page.
This podcast is for writers who love books and everything that goes into the making of them. For writers who want to learn and grow in their craft and improve their writing skills. Writers who want to finish their books and get them out into the world so their ideal readers can enjoy them. Writers who want to spend more time in that flow state.
Writers who want to connect with other writers to celebrate and be in community, in this crazy roller coaster ride, we call the writing life. We are resilient writers. We're writing for the rest of our lives and we're having a good time doing it. So welcome, Writer. I'm so glad you're here. Let's jump right into today's show.
Rhonda:
Well, hey there, Writer. Welcome back to another episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show. So this is one in a series of, I don't know how many where it's just you and I. And I wanted to talk about some of the things that I often see come up every week in First Book Finish. The writers that are in that program fill out a little form for me, and so I now have just thousands and thousands of responses to what's going through your head as you're writing. And so I know some of the most common things that come up for writers, and so this week I wanted to talk about imposter syndrome.
Imposter syndrome, right? This is that. Who do you think you are voice. This is the voice that tells you that even though you had a great idea for a book, and even though you can picture that finished book in your head, and it's this glistening, glimmering beautiful thing, you don't have what it takes to do it. Right?
The book isn't any good. No one's going to want to read this book. It's the voice that says, my writing isn't any good. And for some of us, it's the voice that says, I'm not good enough. And this idea that there is some magical, good enough state for a writer is a fascinating one to me because as someone who has books out into the world, when I didn't have a book out in the world, I hadn't finished anything. I thought that when I finished a book and had it out into the world, I would never feel that again.
When I think about that woman, that young woman who thought that I kind of feel, oh, you sweet baby girl. What you didn't know is that we feel this all the time. There will always be a writer who is doing more, achieving more than you feel You are right? If you haven't yet finished a book, you look at all the writers who have finished books and you feel like an imposter.
If you finish a book and you get it out into the world and it doesn't get shortlisted long-listed for any awards, you look at all the award-winning and the shortlisted and long-listed writers, and you think they have something that I don't, they have talent that I don't have, and I'm an imposter when the truth is the whole award prize thing is so freaking subjective. It's not even funny. I say that as someone who has sat on award in prize, right? It's very, very subjective.
And yet we think if my book hasn't won an award or been shortlisted or long listed for any of the awards, then I'm an imposter. I'm not as good as these other writers. We look at bestselling authors, right? We look at Sarah J Maas, any bestselling author and especially the bestselling authors in our genre, and we think I'm an imposter. I'm not as good as they are. And we compare ourselves. And there's a lot of truth in the saying that comparison is the thief of joy. Comparison is the thief of joy.
I think that part of the issue with imposter syndrome is this idea that we look at what it is we want to achieve creatively, and we find ourselves wondering, do I have the skills to achieve the thing I've set out to achieve? Especially when you're doing something for the first time. Anytime you go to do something for the first time, your brain looks for evidence that you have done it successfully. And when it doesn't find any, that's where it starts to give you these voices of, I'm not good enough. I don't have what it takes. I'm an imposter in this world. I say I'm a writer, but if I don't know how to make my dialogue really tight and crisp, then maybe I'm not. And it's just such a lie.
Let's just pause for a minute. Let's just pause and think about this rationally. No one is born knowing how to write a novel. No one. Although I will say I do believe that if you are someone who has been reading, especially if you've been reading a lot in your genre for most of your adult life, and even when you were a teenager, since the age you started to read, you have an understanding of story structure pretty much embodied in yourself. So much more about story structure than you think you do because you've constantly been taking it in. You've been taking it in through all of the books that you read and you've been taking it in.
Every time you go to the movies, every time you watch your favourite series on Netflix or Hulu or wherever, we know story, we know story structure, and we need to give ourselves the gift, the grace of knowing that we know it, right? So I do believe that that is true, but at some level, none of us are born knowing how to write a novel or not, or a memoir or your book of nonfiction. And when we go to do it for the first time, our brain naturally goes, you don't know what you're doing. You don't have the skills.
Can you think of any other thing you've learned to do in your life that at one time that you can now do with ease that at one time you did not have the skills for? I can. I'm actually okay at lifting weights now, but at one point, I didn't have the skills and I could have hurt myself. If I'd just gone into the gym and picked up a heavy barbell and tried to deadlift a bunch of weight, I could have hurt myself because I didn't have the skills. I didn't know how to set it up. I didn't know how to have the proper form, right?
There are many things I'm, one of the things I'm into right now, again, is plant-based eating. And plant-based eating comes with plant-based cooking. And there are some skills that go with that. And once upon a time, I didn't know, I didn't know what a flax egg was, I didn't know how you could make muffins, for example, rise without eggs. Turns out it's a thing and you can do it, and it's a skill and you learn it, and then you have it right? If you think about your own life, there are tones and tones and tones of examples of where you didn't have skills. And then you learn the skills, and now you have the skills and you don't even think about it anymore. You don't even think about it anymore.
And this is true of writing. You can be someone who wants to write a time travel novel and doesn't know how to do the transition back and forth in time. And then you can read a bunch of novels that do that and go, oh, I see how that works. And then you can practise it as you write your novel, as you revise your novel, you can get some feedback, see how that went, integrate the feedback into your novel. And now you know how to do that. You can be writing a novel and be like, oh, I just feel like my scenes are flat. And then you can go do a workshop on good scene work, right?
Jane Friedman has tons and tons of these sort of $25 workshops that she's always offering with different people. And Writer's Digest has them, and I do them from time to time. And there's lots and lots and lots of examples of places you can go for $29, $39 and understand how to write a great scene. When I do my book Finishers Bootcamp, and I've got another one coming up in September, and when I do that, I do a special training on how to write in scene. And so you go to a workshop, you learn it, and then you practise it. As you write your draught, you improve it. As you revise, you get feedback, you revise again. Now you know how to do that. Now you know how to do that.
And so it's just about learning new skills. I have a mantra that I say to myself all the time, and it is, I am always learning and growing as a writer, and it helps me with my imposter syndrome. I literally have it on a pink post-it note above my writing desk right now. I'm looking at it. I'm always learning and growing as a writer. That statement helps me when I'm in the middle of Act two. And my tendency is to think, oh, I don't know what I'm doing. I can't do this. Why did I ever think that I could? And then I remind myself, no, it's okay.
I'm always learning and growing as a writer. I can learn how to do this thing that I need to do in Act two. And so when you find yourself thinking that you are an imposter, there is genuinely something that for those of us who, if you haven't published a book, you tend to think, I'm not a real writer because I haven't published a book. But if you are writing, you are a real writer.
A writer is someone who writes. You don't have to write every day. You can write a couple, a few times a week. And if you are working on your writing, you are a writer and you are always learning and growing as a writer. And then the other thing I'll tell you is you will put a first book out into the world, and it will be the best book you were capable of writing at the time. And five years from that, you will look back at it and think, oh, if I was to write that book now, I would do it so differently. Because you will have grown as a writer. You'll have learned new things. You'll also be a different human being. You'll have a different perspective.
My reading copy of my published books has lots of words. These are published books, and within them are award-winning pieces that were previously published in literary magazines. And when I read from them, you can see that there are words crossed out and new words. I've changed the words of the published award-winning thing because I'm always learning and growing as a writer.
And so this is our natural state as a human being. When you really think about it, we're always learning and growing. Sometimes every now and again, we get stuck in a little rut, but most of the time we're learning and growing as human beings. And it's true in your writing life as well. You are always learning and growing as a writer and understanding that, really understanding it and understanding that no one was born with these skills.
Not even the people on today's bestseller lists, not even the award-winning authors. You look up to so much. All the writers you think one day I'd like to be just like them. They weren't born with it either. They learned it in the process of practising their craft. And you can too, because you're always learning and growing as a writer.
So I hope that's been helpful today. I think imposter syndrome is one of those things that tends to rear its head pretty often, especially if you haven't yet finished a book and gotten it out into the world. Because the rest of the world, the normal world, looks at writers. And when you say, I'm a writer, they say, have you written anything I've heard of? And I was a poet and a short story writer for a long time, and I was really proud of what I'd accomplished. But if anybody said that the answer was no, because they're not running in those obscure little poetry, short story circles that I'm running in.
So most of the time I was in this small, little obscure world, and it's, people know more about the movies and comics than they do about literature for the most part. And so people will say, well, have you written anything that I might know about? And you want to say, well, I've published. And sometimes they'll even say, well, have you published?
And if you haven't, you feel like an imposter because you haven't done the thing that society sets up as the metric for your success. But if you keep at it, you will. And then you'll be able to say, well, yes I have, and here's the name of my book. And you can get it wherever great books are sold.
This mantra of I'm always learning and growing as a writer is the thing that has saved me in the face of imposter syndrome. And I still get that today. I'm writing a historical mystery at the moment. I've never done it before. I pantsed it, which I 100% do not recommend pantsing a mystery novel. I will never do it again as long as I live. But I learned a lot in the process. I learned so much, and I'm a different writer now as I go to finish this book than I was when I started it. And how exciting is that? How great is that? To know that I'm always learning and growing as a human being and as a writer?
So if that mantra helps you, then I'm always learning and growing as a writer, then I want you to write it on a post-it note and stick it where you can see it, and let it be that little voice of hope that cracks open just enough light, just enough hope for you to schedule your next writing session and sit down and write the next scene of your novel or memoir or the next section of your nonfiction book. Okay, I hope this has been helpful today, and I will talk to you soon.
Outro:
Thanks so much for hanging out with me today and for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show. While you're here, I would really appreciate it if you'd consider leaving a rating and review of the show. You can do that in whatever app you're using to listen to the show right now, and it just takes a few minutes.
Your ratings and reviews tell the podcast algorithm gods that yes, this is a great show, definitely recommend it to other writers. And that will help us reach new listeners who might need a boost in their writing lives today as well. So please take a moment and leave a review. I'd really appreciate it. And I promise to read every single one. Thank you so much.
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