In a few short weeks my book will be released to the world, my very first baby, the one I spent years fretting about and writing and (thankfully) rewriting. Blood, sweat and tears went into this project as I spent hours going over every nuanced detail, trying to get it right so that when (and if) my book ever saw the light of day, no one, not even the most hardened critic, could call me an impostor.
Because that’s what I thought of myself.
Behind every great artist, or person, for that matter, lies a human being who is categorically afraid of being ‘outed.’ Okay, maybe not everyone, but every artist I know who has put their heart into something is afraid of being judged. Me included.
I’ve been that way since I was little.
I came from a family that expressed their feelings openly- sometimes too openly, where the line between something that was private and something that was a secret was seriously blurred. If I didn’t ‘confess’ something to my mother, it must be a horrible thing. And I didn’t do well thinking that I might be horrible. I used to envy my friends who could sneak around without feeling guilty, and this characteristic followed me into my college years.
Needless to say, I was a Square.
Later on, when I started to misbehave I still fought the urge to tell my mother about it, feeling like she didn’t know the ‘real me’ unless she got every dirty detail.
Which brings me back to writing.
As I sit with my finished manuscript I rarely think about how polished it looks. Instead I think about the edits and rewrites, the scenes and passages I thank God I cut out, the contests I entered and failed to win, the rejection letters, the ‘thanks but no thanks’ from authors I asked to write a blurb for me- or worse yet- the ones who never responded at all. In other words, all the ‘dirty little secrets’ I kept from my mother, er… readers.
I think of these things, simmering beneath the surface like my childhood misdeeds, and equate them with the project as a whole. It goes something like… “ I’m sure Jane Austen just sat down and started writing ‘Pride and Prejudice’ without having to stop to consider plot points… She never had to delete scenes. I bet her literary friends wanted to blurb for her…” and while that may have been the case (I’m still not sure what the 19th century version of blurbing might be) I really have no idea if it was. I’m also not limited to literary geniuses like Austen. Pretty much any author has the ability to tear my confidence to shreds and make me feel like the title character in the 'Wizard of Oz' as he frantically tells Dorothy to 'pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.'
But when I’m honest, and not spending time in the ‘Crazy Town’ part of my brain, I realize that the meat of my story is the underbelly of how it came to be. Those imperfections make up the ‘shiny’ part that I’ve chosen to share with the world. Sure, my deleted scenes make me cringe now, but they were part of the network of pathways that led me to the scenes I now cherish.
Bottom line- we don’t have to be perfect to be worthy. In fact, it’s better if we aren’t.
No one likes a story they can’t relate to- or an author, for that matter.
So as I embark on this terrifying (yes, I have dreams where no one shows up to my book signings) adventure called ‘Having my First Book Baby’ I encourage all my fellow writers to embrace what makes them special, even the ugly parts that whisper lies into their sweet little ears. We’re not impostors. We’re artists. And the world needs our imperfect edges in a cookie-cutter world.