Danielle asked Martha Wells:

I'm participating in NaNoWriMo for the first time and I'm really excited but I keep running into self-doubt that I'm afraid will catch up and cripple my chances of finishing the book I've been planning since 2005. Do you ever experience this? How do you not let it derail your writing process?

Martha Wells Yes, I still experience this, and I think it's still a problem for a lot of writers. It's like you fight a little war with yourself over each book. It can also manifest in different ways, like an intense feeling/belief that your writing isn't any good, that no one wants to read it, etc. This often leads to people finishing stories but never trying to submit them anywhere. (That's called self-rejection. You do it yourself, before magazines or publishers ever have a chance to evaluate your work. )

There's really no one trick to overcoming it. I think you have to realize that this kind of self-doubt is a part of your brain trying to sabotage you. Maybe it's fear, trying to protect you from hypothetical failure, but it's also trying to stop you from something you really really want to do. Think how you'd feel if this was another person trying to stop you from writing this story that you really want to tell, that is important to you. Then mentally shove that person out of your way.

Anyway, you're certainly not alone in feeling this way, and I hope that helps a little.

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