Picture it. You have spent a year, okay, 10 years, diligently, passionately researching, thinking, writing, crafting, editing, reading, rewriting, tearing up, retrieving from the trash, letting it go, returning to it, starting over, declaring it done. This is your book, your story, your heart, perhaps even your soul, and you own it. Right up until the point when someone publishes it, puts it between two covers, and releases it to the world.
Then it belongs to everyone.
Even while folks are filling your glass with champagne, lining up to ransom even a moment of your attention as you sign their book, autograph your artistry, you smile and pick up a pen, knowing, in some little tiny place way inside that this work of yours must be special, important, meaningful, right, and beautiful. Even as you allow yourself to wonder if maybe, just maybe, you could have done it, well, better.
It’s rather like gussying up for a party, choosing the blouse whose silk feels sleek against your skin, the black jeans that will never betray you, pairing this with pearls that say you have both substance and style, and shoes that add height and introduce authority. . .and then strutting your stuff through the double doors only to realize that there really is no such thing as “semi-formal.”
Imposter Syndrome is like that.
People suffering from Imposter Syndrome, and by “suffering” I mean that deep, internal kind of sorrow that typically remains silent—while it is simultaneously screaming around in our head, slamming doors and throwing things and carrying on with a few well-chosen expletives—typically do so silently, while we maintain decorum in the social mirror.
Which can be agonizing.
Imposter Syndrome is an affliction that causes us to downplay our abilities and achievements even in the face of resounding success.
No one could have lived or imagined or written the story the way we did. Yet still. We wonder.
Turns out even established writers, the bestsellers and book tourists, the popular and the Pulitzers, have been known to carry around a little sachet of Imposter Syndrome. The scent is heady.
The main problem with Imposter Syndrome is that, whether or not it affects the quality of our work—Thank goodness our higher self typically directs our pen even as we question our capacity to write well—it can keep us from enjoying the process of writing, of reading, of sharing what we have to say.
Knowing we are not a fraud has very little to do with feeling like or worrying that we are. How fascinating that we have full authority over our own thoughts. And yet, how often we question them.
The good news is that we do have ways of working through Imposter Syndrome, of allowing ourselves to be genuine, honest, open, confident, as we express ourselves.
What’s the Point?
Let’s take a moment to consider our goal. Was it to express ourselves, make sense of something, reach out to others, be heard? Writing enables us to exist, even after we’re, well, gone. Was it important to be excellent? good? good enough? By whose standards.
One of the challenges of writing to be read means we are handing out our hearts and minds, exposing our softest, most vulnerable sides to the world, silently asking for their participation in it. Maybe even their opinion—which, typically, is based less on who we are and what we wrote, and more on who they are.
How risky is that? Yet we do it anyway, indicating we must be brave. Very brave. And not alone. One of the truest triggers of Imposter Syndrome is isolation. Working alone, wondering alone, critiquing ourselves, again, alone. So don’t be. We need to surround ourselves with other writers, some at the same stage we are in our process, some who are just getting started and could benefit from our experience, and others who are well ahead of us. Seek out a cadre of writers who have already created community. Or establish our own.
Ultimately, I think it’s about permission—to be ourselves, to tell our story, to play with it, on the page. And then own it.
I dedicate this discussion to the Carmel Writers Club, a collection of authors from all over the country and beyond, who have met during various writers conferences and retreats, finding familiarity and forming solidarity among us. This is a collective of authors who support and celebrate, advise and educate one another through phone calls and emails, meaningful conversations during workshops and seminars, and a text stream that wanders through the ebb and flow of our writing days—and nights.
PS. We writers are not alone. Turns out doctors and dentists, actors, artists, and attorneys, opera singers and sax players, moms and dads, Olympic athletes and Super Bowl stars have suffered from Imposter Syndrome. Maybe it just means we care. And what we have to offer really, really matters.