Many, if not most, of us who write experience self-doubt about whether our writing is any good, has any value, and what that says about us as individuals. Even well-published, professional writers suffer from the same feelings.
Diana Gabaldon is the author of the award-winning, #1 NYT-bestselling Outlander series of novels. She has a scientific Ph.D. and decided to write a “practice” novel with no intention of publishing it. That novel became a worldwide bestseller and has spawned a series of novels that have sold over 25 million copies.
One might assume that with success like that, Diana Gabaldon wouldn’t struggle with self-doubt. In a recent article The Winning Attitude of a Successful Writer, she admits, “Everybody has doubts about their writing (well, most good writers do …).”
Gabaldon writes to share with other writers how she handles the “I feel like a Fraud/Failure” feelings that often arise. Her goal in writing is to help other writers with similar feelings. She suggests 3 attitudes that writers can adopt to separate their writing from their sense of self-worth.
1. Judge the Writing, Not Yourself
“I judge the writing … —but I don’t think I often judge myself” Your job as a writer is to judge the quality of your writing, not judge yourself as a person. Just because you produced some crappy writing does not mean you’re a crappy person. It means you need to work on your writing and improve it.
Your writing isn’t you. It’s not your personal identity, it’s not who you are. It’s a mistake to base your self-worth and value on the quality of your writing. Separate the two.
Evaluate the work, not yourself.
I have some confusion about the division between what we do (the job) and who we are (the person). In one sense, I feel that what I do is a part of who I am. But I also understand that I’ve done many things in my life and even though the job has changed, I’m still the same person. In that sense, there is a division between who I am, and what I do.
2. Writing Isn’t Personal
“If you write something, and it isn’t right, you just mess with it until it is, or until you decide this isn’t the time and place, and do something else for a while. It isn’t personal, I mean.” Diana Gabaldon.
As writers, we need to have the attitude that our writings are works in process. The goal is not to produce perfection on the first pass. Perfection is not a realistic expectation for writers.
The goal is to simply get something down on paper (or, more likely, the computer). Once there is an initial draft, then it’s time to begin the process of improving it.
It’s not “personal” that the first pass wasn’t perfect. That’s expected.
3. Writing Is a Job We Do, Not Us
“It’s a job. An important, challenging, and wildly entertaining job—but a job, not a test of my individual worth as a human being.” Diana Gabaldon.
My writing is a job that I do, not the essential me. It’s a job. And like any job, I can work to improve it.
It’s a mistake to base our sense of self-value and self-worth on how perfect we do our job or how popular our writing is. The reality is that even if you do an outstanding job, not everyone is going to like it. It’s also true that there is no such thing as a perfect piece of writing. Our writing can always be improved.
I speculate that one reason some writers never get beyond the editing process and publish anything is that their ego is too wrapped up in their writing. They feel like if their writing isn’t perfect, then they’ll be judged as less than worthy human beings. They’re afraid to publish anything for fear of what it will say about their value as people.
If we see our writing as a job, not a self-worth statement, then we’ll seek that point where it’s “good enough” and send it into the world. We’ll take the risk of sharing ourselves knowing our writing is a job, not a value judgment.
My Suggestions for Dealing with Self-Doubt
1. Organize before writing the initial draft. You’ll likely do a better initial job of writing if you organize your thoughts before you start writing. I find that drafting a mind map in the MindNode app several days before I start writing, and revisiting and revising that mind map, helps me to know what I’ll be writing before I sit down at my computer.
I find that having a map of what I’ll be writing before I sit down to write helps me to feel more confident about the structure of my writing. Furthermore, I also think it improves the quality of the initial draft and therefore makes editing easier.
2. Edit, then edit some more. Professional writers like Diana Gabaldon stress that all writing, including theirs, needs lots of editing. Starting the writing process with the understanding that it’s a work in process helps me to separate my sense of self from the quality of my writing.
3. Be yourself. Sometimes writers have their egos so invested in their writing and are so worried about being personally judged and found lacking that they are afraid to be themselves when writing. Perhaps they attempt to copy the style of a popular writer they admire, or present themselves in a way that is not really their style. While we can learn from other writers, trying to copy them is a mistake because we’re afraid to be ourselves.
In his classic book on writing, On Writing Well, William Zinsser writes “Readers want the person who is talking to them to sound genuine. Therefore a fundamental rule is: be yourself.”
One of my favorite quotes about being ourselves is from Seth Godin, writing in The Practice: “Of course you’re allowed to sound like you. Everyone else is taken.”
If we consider our writing to be a job and not a judgment of our self-worth, we can be comfortable being ourselves in our writing.