Impostor Syndrome and the Writer

Let me tell you a story.

Once there was a girl who knew a few people with fibromyalgia. They were in severe pain a lot, moved slowly, had to take days off. All things you would expect of people dealing with a chronic disability. This girl had aches and pains and fatigue as well, but she could do steps. She could go out several days in a row, even if she was always tired, and always felt like she had worked out, even when she hadn’t. Then this girl began to limp and tremble and the aches got worse on very cold days. She went to her doctor, and the doctor told her she, too, had fibromyalgia.

How could that be, she wondered. The weather had turned around and she was exhausted but not too sore. She even went for a walk! She began to think it was all in her head. She didn’t really have fibro. And then the cold came again, her pain came back, and she spent half the afternoon in an Epsom salt bath because she had shooting pain in her left leg and her neck ached and her elbows were stiff. And she conceded that even when she didn’t feel like it, she still had fibro. She couldn’t lose her fibro (no matter how much she wanted to).

That girl is me. And I tell you this because while it’s a depressing spin on things, it highlights very clearly what so many writers go through in their heads. “I’m not a real writer.” We give ourselves arbitrary criteria: I don’t write X pages a day. I haven’t got an agent. I didn’t win an award. Get a starred review. Hit the bestseller list. Finish a story yet. Find a critique partner. Write today. Write all week. Whatever. Pick your yardstick, it’s going to be too high, I can guarantee it.

We call it Impostor Syndrome, that little voice that tries to stop us, our fear. Even the most basic “writers write!” can fuel impostor syndrome if you’re fallow at the moment. And you will be, even if it’s just for a week between books–but sometimes it’s years. Creativity can be forced, of course, but chances are you’ll have feast and famine periods, and that’s okay.

Have you ever written? Do you plan to write in the future? Do you think like a writer, having ideas and telling stories in your head? Do you identify as a writer? Then you are one. It can’t be taken from you, and there is no certification program for Being a Writer. (There are degrees in writing, but you don’t need one to be one.)

We need to be kind to ourselves. Impostor Syndrome tries to tell you that you can write one day and feel secure in calling yourself a writer, but then the next day it was all in your head. It doesn’t work like that. You’re a writer or you’re not a writer, and only you can decide that. Impostor syndrome is just fear talking. Don’t listen. Fear is a liar (it’s my twitter banner image, so it must be true.)

 

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