Nerd is the Word

We’ve all been there, noodling along quite happily with the WIP when BAM, all of a sudden you hear that dastardly, needling bastard of a voice: “Oooh look at you ‘writing’! Meeeh what do you think you’re doing? You know it’s all shit, right? And everyone is laughing at you…” Well, it’s time give that voice a swift right hook and carry the fuck on.

The Voice of Self-Doubt, as Neil Gaiman so accurately puts it, is “the first problem of any kind of even limited success… the unshakable conviction that you are getting away with something, and that any moment now they will discover you. It’s Impostor Syndrome, something my wife Amanda christened the Fraud Police.”

So how do escape the feeling that you’re just not good enough? Here are four ways to send Imposter Syndrome packing with a resounding “fuck you!”

CALL YOURSELF A WRITER AND BLOODY WELL BELIEVE IT

Here’s the thing about Imposter Syndrome: it’s not about you.

Imposter Syndrome is more concerned with what other people are thinking: your friends, your co-workers, an agent, YOUR agent. It’s the constant (and usually unfounded) anxiety that all of these people are judging you. But when you spend all your time worrying about what others think, you forget about yourself, what you want, and why you’re writing in the first place.

If you write, you’re a writer – it doesn’t matter what you write or how shit it is. Writing is hard, and everyone has to start somewhere. Improving takes time, determination, and, hardest of all, it takes sitting down to Do The Work.

Did we seriously name our new space agency ARSE because I think we did.