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| Just like me, Franz Kafka felt like a fraud. Image in the public domain (via Wikimedia Commons) |
Hello. My name is Jennifer and I’m…an out-and-out fraud.
I tell people that I’m a writer. It took me a long time to be able to do that, and even now there’s always a little voice in my brain that whispers: writer? No you’re not?
But I go through with the pretence. I post about my books, I tweet the good reviews (there are some), I pretend that everything’s going wonderfully. And in terms of the writing, it is. I love my writing. I think it might be okay. I think it’s even better than some far more successful books, though I've read plenty of unpublished work that's miles better than either. But these days that doesn’t make you a writer.
It's as much about sales and marketing these days as it is about writing. Everything has to be perfect — the strapline, the blurb, the cover. And below that flurry of obvious activity, there’s all the marketing — placing the ads, picking the niche, finding the keywords. And then there’s the face-to-face selling. ‘Here, take my card. I know you’ll love this book.’ And that’s the bit I can’t do.
The worst of it, though, is that failure at the marketing side of it undermines any joy you get from working at the coal face (or the computer screen). I love writing. I’ll always write. When I stop for a period, I become genuinely depressed until I start again. It’s something I have to do. But that doesn’t make me a writer. It makes me someone who writes.
There’s a name for this. It’s called impostor syndrome. I know many, many people who suffer from this, and a huge proportion of them are writers. It's always been like this. Take Franz Kafka: "Afraid to finish a review for the Prager Tagblatt. Such fear of writing always expresses itself by my occasionally making up, away from my desk, initial sentences for what I am to write, which immediately prove unusable, dry, broken off long before their end, and pointing with their towering fragments to a sad future," he wrote in his diary. And I certainly know how that feels.
The problem, I think, is that rejection is part of the writer’s life. Every success — even a small one — is built on a dozen or more failures, and requires a huge amount of luck. Every failure brings misery and self-doubt until that's what we become conditioned to accept. Today when I open my email I’m always looking for the rejection letter and if I were ever to succeed, no doubt I’d be opening it looking out for the ‘sorry, we're dropping you’ email from my publisher.
I know I should give it up and do something measurable, where success in indisputable. (When you've run a marathon, no-one can argue that you’re a success, no?) But I can’t. There was never a better illustration of “can’t be together but can’t let go” than a writer and their writing…
(PS If you’d like to buy any of my books you can find them here, but pleased don’t feel obliged).
I'm one of those people that believes if you write consistently, you're a writer. But I understand this blog entry, and it resonates with me. I feel like an imposter too sometimes. But then I focus on the joy of my craft, and know that I can never quit. For me it's all about the beautiful words. Thanks for this post. It's nice to know that I'm not alone.
ReplyDeleteA heartfelt post that will resonate with every writer - including me. I suspect writers are not the only ones to suffer this. A crisis in confidence can affect people in all walks of life, particularly those whose jobs and relationships rely on the acceptance/positive feedback of others.
ReplyDeleteAll of this, as Terry Lynn says, is how so many writers feel. But any rejection, indeed any not very good review, is only someone's opinion - it is not writ in stone. My husband made a comment once when I was a bit down about a rejection. He said, 'If you run a race, play a game of tennis, drive a Formula 1 car, then to be first can be considered a success. But the other runners, the person on the other side of the net, and the other Formula 1 drivers have to have someone to pace themselves against. I suppose it's not a lot different for writers.' He is, I think, very right. And that's what I tell myself whenever something I've written doesn't find a home .... only in my heart when I was writing it. Hang on in there, Jennifer.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I understand the sentiment behind your argument, Jennifer, I don't necessarily agree that someone who doesn't enjoy the marketing side of being a novelist makes them someone who writes, rather than a writer. Someone might be brilliant at coming up with witty strap lines and engaging with readers online, but unless they also put their bum on the seat and get the really hard work done, writing a novel or short story or whatever it might be, then they're not a writer - they are someone who is great at marketing. The conflicting demands on a writer's time are tricky to juggle and I think it's healthy to step back from social media from time to time and re-fill that creative well. I constantly wonder what the heck I'm doing and if I'll ever be able to call myself a writer (for me I must have at least one novel published before I can lay claim on the title) but then the alternative, not writing, is more painful to consider and so we keep on. Follow your heart, Jennifer. Marketing is important but not nearly as important as writing a great story, which you do so well.
ReplyDeleteThis rings so many bells. That accursed marketing and things such as positioning the product (?), SEOs, finding the niche and simply being "out there", wherever "there" is. There was a time when writers wrote and the publisher did the rest. Now we have to be fluid public speakers, meeters and greeters, debaters and entertainers. And in all this, the product of all our talent becomes forgotten and overlooked. Feel for you, and with you, Jennifer.
ReplyDeleteI am with you on this!Most times I feel like a lesser writter too because I lack the marketing skills and consistency. With this little piece I have read however, I perceive Jenifer as a deep writter and I hope to read more of her books. Please check out my amateur blog http://yemoj2000.blogspot.com.ng/?m=1
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