Was there ever a group of people more prone to self-defeating rhetoric than writers? We can be insanely adept at finding ways to talk ourselves out of doing the work, improving our craft, or trusting that we have something to offer. Like players who bench themselves before the big game, we’re primed to give ourselves anti-pep talks.
Here are some of the Greatest Hits of self-doubt—and how to answer the voices in your head. (Yes, this means talking to yourself, but that’s just about the least quirky behavior a writer can
exhibit.)
Everything’s been done. Remember that great mystery you read about disappearance of the last safari guide in Namibia and how the story was told entirely in first-person (er, first-animal) flashbacks by the hunted creatures? No? That’s because no one has written that book. You’ll have write it yourself to prove your original claim true—and when you’re finished, I’ll be waiting with another example of a story that’s not been done. (The complete history of competitive banjo! The same-sex Regency romance set entirely inside carriages!) Seriously, there’s no dearth of subjects, but even a familiar story becomes new again when told in your words, with your choice of images, dialogue, and detail.
I’m no good. The circular logic here is maddening: I don’t write because I’m no good and I can’t get better because I don’t write but I don’t write because I’m no good…and so on and so forth until the brain dissolves in a puddle of go from all this endless looping. The surest way to be truly awful at something is to not do it, so unless awfulness was the goal all along, get writing. Practice makes your writing better and better is the first stop on the way to good.
I’m no [insert famous author here]. “I’ll never be Toni Morrison, so why even bother” may reflect that you have high literary standards, but it’s also ridiculous. An estimated seventy gazillion authors worth reading have also not won the Nobel for Literature and they get up every day, throw on some clothes, and hit the keyboard or steno pad anyway. (Actually, not all of them bother with clothes; it’s the keyboards and steno pads that matter.) No accomplished writer became accomplished without first being a writer no one ever heard of.
No one will ever read it. While it’s true that you can’t predict how many people will see the masterpiece you create, you guarantee yourself an audience of zero for any book you don’t start. And once you do write, you need to share it without gloom. Begin with audiences at hand: beta readers (usually smart friends or family members you can stand). Then expand outward to agents or editors or book bloggers, audiences of one who can help get to you larger audiences. But if “no one will read it” is really just your way of moaning that you won’t sell a million copies, I can’t help you—it’s probably true. By that logic, however, you should also stop going to work because your job will never make you a billionaire. This is not good logic.
I’m afraid of failure. Then why fail to write? I mean it. If you’re not writing, despite wanting to, wouldn’t that count as failing most of all? Every sentence you write, every page you finish, every chapter you polish up—that’s staving off failure with action. It’s winning.
I’ve only debunked five of the million excuses you can come up with, but it all comes down to the same thing: what makes a writer a writer is writing. Get to it!
