It’s been two months since I finished my last book. Two months in which I went through the usual ups and downs, the weird paranoid panic that I may never write again. That maybe this time the magic won’t come back and I’ll never finish another book.
You would think after writing forty six novels I’d be over that paranoia, but I’m not. I mean, it’s a little less vibrant of a worry inside of me, but the worry is still there. It still sneaks in a few weeks into the lull between books. The sly little whisper that says, “That was the last one. It was all fluke, a onetime deal and now that magic is gone.” Of course now that I’m a mature woman I can tell that little voice to fuck off, that of course I’ll write the next story, but it just laughs, a little knowingly, a lot mean. Like it knows something I don’t, that it knows I’ve only been lucky this far.
This time the Imposter Syndrome has more ammo, new and shiny ammo that it can lob at me like a wet blanket grenade, effectively smothering the joy I feel when I finish a new story. It’s very happy with this new weapon, and turns it on me quite effectively mere days after I write “The End”. This time it says, “Yeah, you might write again, but will you be able to write the next book in the series? Will you be able to finish THIS story? This series that you somehow know is going to be your life’s work? That this is the story you were meant to tell from the very first moment you put ink to paper at seven?”
It’s an evil bastard, this Imposter Syndrome, and it takes up residence in the heart of everyone at some point in their life. It is especially fond of kicking you right at the height of your triumph, snatching away those golden moments. It revels and grows within our own self-doubt. And I’ve learned it never goes away, no matter how confident you may become, no matter how successful and skilled you might be.
But it can be caged. It can be silenced and pushed aside to sulk in the corner of your mind.
How you ask?
By pushing through, by starting that next book, that next project, by reminding yourself that it thrives on lies. That it doesn’t know you and that you’re not going to fail, because you’re not done yet. You’re just getting better from here.
How do I know this?
Because I just started DownCast Angel, Book 5 of my ShadowGate Series. The one it said I would never start.
It lies.
I don’t.
Keep writing, keep dreaming, and cage that little bastard.
Until next time,
L
