Confidence and Confidants

This is not a post about writing--at least, not at its core. It matters very much to the process of writing, though, so I'll share it here.

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It's been a long time since I've written on this blog. More than a year. I don't bring that up as a commentary admitting to my absence; it's germane to why I'm writing here today.

I didn't write on here because I wasn't writing at all. Last year I struggled a great deal with a lot of things, most of which I'll talk about here in time, all of which were part of the Gordian knot I'd tied myself into. But at the root of why I stopped writing was this: I had lost confidence in myself.

One of the most fundamental reasons for belonging to a writers group like Wyrdsmiths is to have the support and encouragement of your fellow writers around you. And they have been there, not pressing me, letting me have and take whatever time I might need. I certainly wasn't burdening the group with work to critique.

For those of you who don't know me well, I should note that I've been writing for 20 years now. I identify as a writer, and consider writing to be core to my sense of self, more than almost any other trait. And I almost quit writing last year, for good.

Not that it would have been good. I am a fundamentally happier person when I am writing.

I've been working on a particular novel project for twelve years now, off and on—mostly off. It is a large project, somewhat overwhelming, and a project of its scale brings its own complications and dangers to the table: “Am I good enough to write this book? How can I possibly keep track of a world this large, with so many characters and complications, et cetera? How will people react if I retell a story they have so much grounded upon?” A piece of this novel was what I submitted to Wyrdsmiths when I was first trying to join the group years ago, and over the years I have come back to it and turned in pieces of it for critique.

Along the way, I've collected lots of opinions on it, ranging from delight to disgust. Several more experienced writers, in whom I have a lot of trust, suggested that certain elements of the novel would need to change or else it wouldn't be publishable. That was difficult to handle. Not only did I know from reading other novels that had been published that some of those styles and elements had been used successfully, but it made me stop and scrutinize the structure of the piece in a way that didn't help me continue on to complete the story. I started to feel that the reason I couldn't use a particular style or phrasing was that I wasn't good enough to do that, unlike Author A who had already established a name.

I'm not saying there isn't some truth to that nugget about publishing. I'm saying it affected me in an unhelpful way.

Perhaps the least helpful response when faced with an already overwhelming project is thinking that you are not up to the task. I turned to other writing to improve my craft. I wrote short stories—a very good way to focus on tightening your craft, by the way; shorter word count, fast turnaround—and found that there were innumerable things wrong with what I was doing. I tried to work on other novels, and found that problems persisted. Rejection is discouraging, and as writers we have to shoulder a lot of it.

Add to this downward trend that I would rather be writing than doing almost anything with my life. I enjoy writing for weeks and months at a time—and yes, I have done so, and finished novels before. I know that I could do this full-time. And I see that future becoming less and less clear, less probable, with each passing year.

I stopped believing in myself, and started letting all the baggage accumulate. I stopped loving the process.

Was the frustration of writing and the associated feedback the only thing that sapped my confidence? No, not by a long shot. I cut myself down in plenty of other ways, and I'll get to some of those in due course. But the key is that as a developing writer, I came at the critique process wrong: I cared too much what others thought.

Before you jump: Critique is essential to improving your work. Feedback from other writers can be one of the most valuable assets you ever encounter. But you must find the proper balance between listening to what others think and doing what you believe in. You must believe in the story the way it works in your own mind, and you must believe in yourself as the person who can tell that story.

No, really. You must be confident.

If you don't believe in the story, you won't have the energy necessary to sit down all those days and hours to write it. You won't care about it in the way that will keep you coming back, even when it's difficult. You won't be able to pour your energy into it, because you won't actually believe it is worth investing your energy in.

And if you don't believe in yourself, you're building yourself into a house of cards. It's not pretty when your house falls down around you. Every writer has things they struggle with. Every writer gets better as they work on their craft. And every writer can only do as well as they are able to right now. You can't just wait and hope you'll get better. Writing takes practice. Write this book now. Sure,maybe your craft will be better when you write the next one, or the one after that. But if you don't write this one, you definitely won't get any better, and you won't have anything to show for it, either.

The moral of the story? Your fellow writers are a wonderful resource for you as a writer—they understand some of the stresses and difficulties you will experience along the road of writing. And they are, generally, are trying to help* when they give you feedback on a story. It's up to you to find the right balance between listening to what they have to say and holding on to that vision of the story that got you so energized to write it in the first place. It's okay for a story to change, for feedback to alter it, but not if it means you don't care about the story any more. That's not a change it's okay to make.

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*If they aren't, send 'em to me. I got me plenty of vim and vinegar to dole out to that sort of critic.