Impostor Syndrome

Lately, I have been experiencing Impostor Syndrome. Not in the traditional sense, in that I’m afraid that people will read my stuff and go “man, he’s no real writer.”

More like, I’ve been questioning my ability. Am I really any good? Is this something that I should be pursuing?

It’s hard. I sit down to write, and just can’t get my self to write more than a few hundred words before the doubts start to crowd in. First, it’s those words I just wrote. They’re utter crap. They are, in fact, such total shit that there is just no way I can even edit them into something that’s just bad, never mind into something someone else will want to read. And if those words are horrible, than the rest of the book I’ve just spent time on getting to 56,000 words on has to be the worst piece of tripe ever written. Ever. Because I’m that bad.

It takes a very special kind of ego-manic to think that your own work is the absolute worst example of work ever, in the whole history of mankind.

Thankfully, I have some support. First, there’s my wonderful wife, who loves to hear about the stories I’m writing, even if the genre isn’t always something she’s interested. In the case of this particular book I’m writing right now, Mythic America, she’s excited to read it, and so encourages me to just finish the damn thing.

Then, I have my friends on Google Plus, Twitter and Facebook. The other writers out there who’ve been through this, who know where I’m coming from, who can tell me that if I just push on, it’ll get better.

And then I discovered today something else that helps.

My stories are really, really good.

I discovered this by re-reading a few. See, here’s the thing. There’s this saying “fake it ‘till you make it.” So, I was reminded of that when I mentioned to someone that I was feeling like a writing fraud. So, I kept on writing, no matter how much of a struggle it got, or how much I thought what I was writing was shit.

Then, the other day, my wife sent me the link to sign up for Clarion writer’s workshop. So, I said I would fill it out, even though I’m convinced that I’m nowhere near good enough to even get accepted.

Part of the requirements is that I find two stories to submit. So, I’m going back through some of my shorts to find the best two to send in.

I’m reading a couple, some I can’t even remember writing, and I find myself thinking, “Man, this is really good.”

Over and over again. Yes, some of those stories sucked, but there was a surprising number of them that were good.

Stories that I wrote. That I thought were good.

It’s important.

And it’s freeing. It helps to remind me that I’m not a fraud. I really am a good writer. One that’s good enough to get into Clarion. And so now I’m filling out this application for myself, because, damnit, I AM good enough for this workshop. I AM good enough to be published.

I am a damn good writer.

And I’m not going to let anyone, not even myself, tell me otherwise.

NaNoWriMo Round-up!

I know that it’s a day late at this point, but NaNoWriMo is officially over, so I thought I would do a post Novel-Writing post.

I love NaNo. I’ve done it five times now, counting this year, and have won all five times. And I learn something near each time, too.

The first time, I learned that I can, in fact, finish a project. This was important to me, and I know many other authors out there that have trouble finishing projects, so I think it’s a worthwhile point to make. Finishing that novel was a huge success, and the fact that it was also a GOOD novel was even better. I spent the last few years editing and polishing it, true, but that’s not the point here. It could have been utter crap that I never touched again. The fact was, I finished it, and that was damn good.

The next time I won, I did it with 60,000 words, and a half-finished novel. That year taught me that, when I put my mind to it, I can find the time to write. A few hundred words in the morning before anyone else is up, and the same at the end of the day. My 15 minutes breaks at work to get in a few hundred words more. I found that getting in 2,000 words a day was pretty damn easy. Sadly, this novel has not been finished. I did like it, though, and I believe that one day I shall revisit it, and finish it off.

The third year, I tried something different. I outlined a novel as much as I was able to. I learned during this run that while outlining helps me to a certain degree, by giving me a guideline when I get lost in the narrative, I need to be careful to not over outline a novel. I am what many call a “seat of the pants” writer, meaning I do best when I just sit down and write. I prefer the term “discovery writer,” myself, but it means the same thing. I have learned, however, that pure discovery writing doesn’t always work, and some outlining helps keep the discovery writing flowing. This story, for those interested, turned out to be utter crap, and I have simply tossed it aside and moved on. Sometimes, you win in word count, but not in story. Another lesson learned that year.

As a side note, that same year, I had also done Script Frenzy, for the first and last time. I did it because I had always wondered if I could write a TV show script. I learned that I could not. At least, not at my current level of skill. Script writing is much harder for me that straight prose. It requires a certain kind of thought processes that I would have to train myself to do, and so I’ve put that desire aside for now. But, I can at least say I gave it a try, and I’m happy about that.

My fourth win was part of another project I was doing at the time. I took a challenge from Ray Bradbury, which was to write one short story a week for a full year, and I blogged my stories. (You can read them all here, http://1storyaweek.blogspot.com). So, last year I combined NaNo and 1 Story a Week by writing a novel that was a collection of short stories. I learned that writing short stories was much different than a novel, and making the individual stories complete stories in and of themselves while still telling one big story was also pretty hard. I’m not sure how successful I was, but I can tell you that I learned a lot doing it, and that if I ever did it again, I would be better.

This year, I decided to write a story that I had been keeping in a drawer labeled “really good ideas that I don’t want to fuck up.” I’m sure many of you authors out there know this drawer. I had avoided writing this story out of a fear that I would do just that. The idea was a good one, and it deserved good prose to make it come to life. Well, I learned this year that, unless I actually write it, unless I am willing to risk writing something really shitty with that great idea, I will never write that idea at all. Taking a good idea and writing something bad, I learned, is better than not doing it at all. Also, it turned out that the story I am writing is pretty damn good, up to par with the idea, I believe. So much so that, even though I won NaNo, I am still writing this book. Because unlike my second win, I want to finish this novel.

And that’s my NaNo journey so far. I am looking forward to NaNo next year. I have no idea what I will write about, or what I will learn, but I’m sure that I will have a blast doing both.

So, until next year, I hope that those of you who did NaNo had fun, win or lose, and I hope you keep writing your novel, win or lose. Because in the end, the best thing about NaNo isn’t winning, it’s getting that novel started.

Oh, speaking of this year’s Novel, I am planning on posting the first chapter up here soon. Maybe tonight or tomorrow, so stay tuned.

Welcome!

Welcome to I Must be Remembering the Future! In this blog, I will be detailing my journey as an Author, from my continuing projects, such as the book I am about to start writing (currently unnamed), to trying to get my completed novel, The Windsmith, published, to cool stuff I find on the web related to writing, and other things that catches my fancy. Mostly, though, I'm going to try and keep the focus of this blog on writing and my adventures putting words to paper.

If you are not already following my other blog, it's one where I publish one short story a week for a whole year. It's nearly over, though, and right now it's running my latest novel, The Life and Times of Aries Webb. Go, read and enjoy at http://1storyaweek.blogspot.com.

Before I go further, I wanted to give credit where credit is due. The name of this blog came from my wife, who suggested it after a conversation with a friend of her's who said "Didn't we talk about this already? Or maybe I'm just remembering the future." It was such a good idea, I had to steal it.

In the mean time, I look forward more musings about the future.