Self-Doubt

Self-doubtI thought about just leaving it at that. You all know exactly what I’m talking about, don’t you? It goes hand-in-hand with wanting validation, feeling unappreciated, and that pesky cousin: imposter syndrome.

It’s especially powerful for me when I have a manuscript out on submission, as I do now. She hates it. It’s crap. How did I ever think anyone would care about my characters, or the time period, or the plot that came from somewhere I don’t know where? Yes, full-blown self flagellation.

Because I can’t not be writing, and I’m too uncertain to go through the pain of another first draft right away (although I’ve made a start on what may be my next WIP), I sometimes go back to manuscripts that have not gone anywhere, but that I still feel have some merit. So I dug out the first part of a trilogy I wrote ten years ago, and that is the book of my heart in many ways. It takes place during the death throes of a magnificent culture that was ground to dust by political ambitions and religious zeal. There are knights, and troubadours, and heretics, and monks. But most of all, for me, trobairitz.

Ah yes, and therein lies one of the reasons it never went anywhere. Too obscure.

I said “one of the reasons.” When I picked it up and imagined I was going to submit it, I realized that something else was wrong with it. To put it plainly, the writing wasn’t great. It wasn’t tight enough, compelling enough, and it was…wordy. There. I said it out loud.

I think that was the moment I realized that I’m a different writer now. I hope that means I’m a better one. I think it does. See? Self-doubt.

And being that person whose drive to write is as powerful as needing to scratch a deep, unscratchable itch, I started tinkering. I’ve cut nearly 10,000 words and counting. And I’m going straight through it for the second time. So many darlings, passages I labored over way back when, are gone. It’s better. Stronger. More compelling.

But… Who will ever care aside from me? I guess that’s what “write for yourself” truly means. There is absolutely no guarantee that I’ll do anything with this trilogy other than edit it and edit it until it’s something I think people might like to read, if ever it saw the light of day.

Might. See? My old buddy self-doubt again.

Related Posts

Write What You Don’t Know

Write What You Don’t Know

This is, of course, the opposite advice than is often given to young writers. But it occurred to me from a chance comment by someone on my email list that this is exactly what I do—in a way. It's not that I write from ignorance, exactly. Perhaps it would be better to...

read more
Fishermans Cowl

Fishermans Cowl

Cast on 28 stitches. Size 19 needles. Knit one row.  I had to throw so much yarn away before I moved, thanks to the moths. Alpacas and merinos that would have felt soft and warm as they slipped through my fingers and grew row by row into something, anything. Blues and...

read more
Is My Idea Original?

Is My Idea Original?

This is a question I'm asked from time to time by inexperienced writers, who are—quite naturally—concerned that they're not seen as copying another author or idea, or are afraid of having someone else copy theirs. I say "quite naturally," because in many areas of our...

read more
Books you have to write

Books you have to write

The peculiar thing about writing a book is that sometimes you don’t know where the idea for it came from. Other times you can trace it exactly to something you saw, heard, read, researched, etc. But whatever spawned the idea, something about it made you feel as if you...

read more
The Pleasures of Reading Together

The Pleasures of Reading Together

I moved into an apartment in an old mill building in Biddeford, Maine in February of this year. Although I have a daughter, grandsons, and a brother and his family who live in Portland (twenty minutes away), I knew no one in this town. I stayed in touch, of course,...

read more
Nothing Is the Same

Nothing Is the Same

My Life Changed. But I Still Have a Book Coming Out. I knew something was wrong with him almost a year ago, but I didn’t know how wrong. He’d seen me through nearly eleven book launches, was always there for the triumphs and the disappointments. He read my books, he...

read more

Comments

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *