We all know a picture doesn’t tell the whole story. Nor do social media posts. But I think what we authors can sometimes forget is that the finished book doesn’t tell it all either.
Recently, I spoke with a book coaching client and from the moment she answered the phone, I heard reservation in her voice. When I told her that, she hesitated before admitting that she was struggling with imposter syndrome.
We spent an hour on the phone, discussing her work in progress, the notes I had made, and the encouragement I had for her. This woman, though she has written a full-length book, struggles to call herself a writer. This woman, who has relentlessly revised her manuscript since I first provided notes for her a few months ago, isn’t confident that she has earned that label.
Lurking beneath was a doubt that said: I’m not good enough. I can’t do what others have done. I will never be able to finish this book. I will never be a writer.
Here’s the thing: if you write, you are a writer. Period. The problem is that we too often compare our first, second, fiftieth drafts to the neat and polished ones on the bookstore shelves. But what we don’t know is the work, effort, time, brainstorming, drafts, revisions, developmental edits, copy edits, proofreads, marketing, and more that have gone into getting that title on the shelf.
So, when we sit down to write, we can struggle with getting the words out. Why? Because they aren’t the right words. The perfect words. The words that ebb and flow and pull the reader into a magical experience that makes them lose all sense of time and place, so absorbed in the world and characters we have put on the page for them.
And when those words don’t come, the whispers start:
You can’t do this.
You won’t do this.
Who do you think you are?
You certainly aren’t a writer.
And before you know it, Imposter Syndrome has photobombed your writing session.
I speak from experience. This week, I lost my voice…figuratively. After spending months on my current work-in-progress, I sat down to write one day and felt that I could no longer hear my protagonist, a rather frightening experience given that this is a deeply close first person POV. Let me just say, perfect words did not flow this week.
For a variety of reasons, this has not been an ideal week. I’ve had plenty of moments that have not been social media worthy. It all started with a quick beach trip to celebrate my youngest’s birthday. All she wanted was an overnight ocean-side stay with a few friends. If you look at the pictures, it was a beautiful weekend. But, as I said, a picture doesn’t tell the whole story.
What you can’t see are the below-freezing temperatures that severely limited our time in the sand. Nor can you see the hotel that didn’t quite live up to the online description. Nor the sickness that hit one of us in the middle of the night.
If we look only at the edited photos, we don’t see the entire story. Just like when we authors compare our works-in-progress to the finished stories on the bookstore shelves or the author accomplishments touted on social media.
We can never know the entire effort it took to get a story from idea to paperback. Just like those beach pictures, we don’t know what all happened behind the scenes. But we need to keep moving forward, even when a cold front visits South Carolina, even when we lose our voice, even when the imposter syndrome whispers in our ear or blatantly photobombs our efforts. Because to be a writer is to write. Period.
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