Warning: Ranty too much information-y post ahead …
I mentioned in yesterday’s Ramble that I hadn’t written as much as I’d planned to write. What I didn’t say was that I’ve had problems writing very much at all - and because I have a deadline, that’s an issue. (If my editor is reading this, don’t worry, I’ll make the date, even if I’m slithering over that line on my belly like a snake… now, there’s an image.)
After talking the issue through with Grant this morning on our five at five - the almost 5kms we walk along Mooloolaba Beach at almost 5 a.m. each weekday morning - I hit on the reason.
The problem isn’t with the story - I love the story I’m supposed to be writing. Nor is the problem that I don’t know my characters well - the crew from Whale Bay and I are great mates. It’s not even that I’m stuck - while I don’t yet know who did it (I rarely know this until near the end), I know what they did and why. I know what I want to write; the words, though, are coming out slowly and clunky.
With the benefit of an a-ha moment, the symptoms have all been there:
I’ve been distractaeating - lots - when I’m supposed to be trying to lose a heap of weight (and when I say I have a heap to lose, I mean I have a heap to lose).
I’ve been distractawatching - anything - on my laptop when I’m supposed to be writing. I’ve even set my VPN to the UK so I can catch up on some of those shows.
I’ve been thinking through ideas for the next book rather than writing this one.
My normally Dory-like brain is even more distractable and lacking in focus than usual. Admittedly, this is something I have struggled with since perimenopause, but at 57 I thought I’d come out the other side of that.
It was when Grant pointed out that I’d been like this since I got home from Sydney and that he’d thought I would have been full of inspiration rather than in the depths of miserabilism (and yes, it’s the title of a Pet Shop Boys song so therefore it is a real word) that I realised the truth. What I was experiencing was a decent dose of Imposter Syndrome.
As writers, we’ve all been there, but this time the chorus of “not good enoughs” rarely far from my shoulder have turned up in a crowd that could fill Racecourse Stadium (it’s a Wrexham thing). Plus, in case I manage to tune out the voices, they’re all waving placards with writing large enough for me to read without my glasses. There’s been no escaping them.
While I came away from BAD Sydney Crime Festival with pages full of hints and ideas, I also realised that this was a festival mainly for traditionally published authors with books to place on stands, fans who were prepared to buy said books and queue (yes, queue) for them to sign. These were authors earning enough money to be able to claim research trips on tax, who were invited to speak on panels, who had agents and publishers, and who were friends with other authors who also had all of these things. With this realisation came the knowledge that I don’t have any of that and probably never will do. And with that realisation came another - I want it all. I want the fans, the panels, the industry respect. I even want to earn enough money from selling books that I earn back the accumulated losses of the past ten years and have to pay tax. Yes, I want to earn enough money from book sales that I have to pay tax. Sad, but true.
How could I stand there, in that company, and call myself an author? And if I wasn’t a real author, what was the point of it all - of the effort, the investment?
My husband, always practical and sympathetic, said something like, ‘but you want to write what you want to write and not have to pitch and ask permission to write it.’
Yes, but …
‘If you want all of that, you have to work out a way to get it all while still doing things the way you want to do things.’
Yes, but …
‘Besides, you’re the one who’s always not just half-full but knows there’ll be a top-up of the glass coming from somewhere.’
Yes, but …
‘If you don’t write the book, you can’t sell it.’
‘You know none of this is helpful,’ I said. ‘Besides, it’s a head thing.’
‘If you know that, why don’t you do something about it,’ he said.
‘Still not helpful.’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know what you want me to say. What usually works when you go through this?’
Yes, reader, I’ve been through this before.
‘I JFDI* it,’ I said. ‘And you know what my attention span is like - eventually I forget I even feel that way.’
‘Well, do that,’ he said helpfully.
In the car on the way home from the beach I realised something else: while I told everyone I hadn’t retired, I’d moved from a corporate career to my own author business - I wasn’t acting like that. I wasn’t treating this as a job. I wasn’t doing what I’d set out to do. I was, instead, acting as though I was retired and writing was my hobby.
The reason why I felt like an imposter was because I was acting like one. Time to get back to business basics; retirement is over.**
*Just F#$king Do It
**Although, in full disclosure, I’m off to Asia for a week in October …
It it helps any you do have some fans lining up (virtually!) waiting for your book releases!! I so rarely buy any books since I read them so fast but I enjoy yours far too much not to purchase them.
i think we all feel like impostors a fair bit of the time!! I know i do.
cheers
sherry https://sherryspickings.blogspot.com/