Doubt

By Corbyn · Nov 9, 2017 · 775 · 4
  1. As writers, we're all acutely familiar with the difficulties involved with overcoming our sometimes crippling self-doubt. It's often a hard-fought battle. In my case, the battle is occasionally won, but never the war. It's hard to remember that self-doubt is all in your own head. Especially when life kicks you in the shins, steals your cupcakes, and pushes you down on your ass like the big bully it can be.

    That's where I am right now. Wondering how best to get back at the bully.

    The good fight isn't going so well. Recently I had to move cross country. I made the decision to leave my safety net (job of 11 years) and do this thinking that I had a safety net waiting for me. Someone slashed my net right out from under me. My resulting job hunt has left me shaken in my abilities/skills.

    I'm at a crossroads. I have literally everything I've worked so hard for the last 11 years to lose, my savings, new home, car, and now no safety net. Do I continue to crawl through the slush piles looking for a job I'm going to hate doing something I'd rather not be doing? Or do I bite the bullet and actually try to write?

    I've always tried to approach my writing in a very practical way. I never thought I'd be able to really give it the time or attention I wanted, much less be able to do it professionally. Can I even get past my own self-doubt to try to make a go of it?

    I just don't know. I really hate not knowing.

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  1. GrahamLewis
    Corbyn, I agree that not knowing can be frustrating, even frightening. But in my experience it can also be liberating. Because to me the truth is that we can never know, and anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves.

    I'm sure I'm older than you, based on the fact that you have "only" 11 years of working life behind you, while I have more than 40. And it took me much of that time to realize that security is an illusion. It became clear to me when people younger than me began leaving this mortal coil. And I saw what I think is the real truth about life -- we come from mystery, we vanish into mystery, and in the meantime we try to make sense of the impossibly unknowable.

    A roundabout way of saying you are young enough to take this chance. I think you will be better off if you try and fail than if you wait until you never have the chance to try.

    Bottom line is, whatever you do is what you do, and there is no right or wrong.

    IMHO. Best of luck.
    GrahamLewis, Nov 16, 2017
      CerebralEcstasy and Corbyn like this.
  2. CerebralEcstasy
    How are you doing with this? Has your sink or swim dilemma prompted to you to swim like a shark? I seen that you had some freelancing work.

    Oops, you kind of updated this next blog, I'm not reading them in order! Good for you for doing this!
    CerebralEcstasy, Feb 7, 2018
      Corbyn likes this.
  3. Corbyn
    @CerebralEcstasy I don't think this is something that you ever stop having to deal with, unless your JK Rowling, or maybe Stephen King. Even then to some degree, I think they deal with it. I watched a video by an indie author named Jenna Moreci. She has many youtube videos on a wide range of subjects. Anyway, in this particular video, she was talking about the need to not give a shite, and to get into a headspace to get your work done.

    This is hard for me. Real hard. I think it's hard because I don't really have a reader/fanbase yet. I have one or two people who want to read more of my stuff, and a few people in writers groups always tell me, where is the rest? Which you'd think would help right? No. It doesn't. I've never been a confident person. EVER. I came off semi-confident in my last job, but even there it was just because I spent so much time reciting info my boss had given over and over again.

    The truth is, when your not a very confident person, I'm not sure you ever get over that. I think some people find a way to soldier through it, I just haven't figured it out yet. Last night I had a writers group meeting. I was excited to go because I haven't had much luck finding many writers resources up here in MI. But after the meeting, I had another few hours of doubt. I kept thinking, what are you doing? You're going to have to get a real job soon. You're not going to be able to pull this off. It was so bad my housemate actually asked me if I was ok. It affected me so much, he thought I was sick. Why did I feel this way?? I have no idea. Sometimes it just comes on. I suspect it was because I got very little feedback at the meeting, and I started to wonder if this particular group isn't where I'm supposed to be. (I found out last night there is another group with more serious writers that meet at the library. Some of which are in my genre.)
    Corbyn, Feb 7, 2018
      CerebralEcstasy likes this.
  4. CerebralEcstasy
    I don't belong to a writer's group, but I did take a course called 'Take Time For Your Life', based off the book of the same name. There would be times when my thoughts would be met with absolute silence, and I came to realize that my goals were vastly different than those around me. They were there to 'take a course' they weren't there to actually grasp what we were learning and put it into practice.

    Perhaps your new focus has sunk in, you wanted to think more of your writing than it simply being a hobby, but rather from a business perspective. However, the writers you're meeting with, I suspect are hobbyists. Do you think this may be true? I would definitely take the opportunity to meet up with the more serious group. It's very likely you've outgrown the other group. I know I did mine.

    That 'course' changed my way of thinking about things. I prompted me to quit my job, earn a nanotechnology systems diploma, and start working in research after YEARS of being stuck in a career I hated. It was like it freed me of the confines of my own self doubt, even if momentarily. I remember sitting in a classroom of 24, I was the second oldest in the class, and 1 of 5 women taking this diploma, and I thought, what have I done?

    How could I, at 38 hope to compete with these 20 somethings? By the end of the first semester, we were down to 19 students and only 4 women remained and I was one of them. In the 3rd semester I took honors standing. I too am not the most confident woman on the planet, but I kept pushing myself and challenging that self depreciating script playing in my head. It's not quite dead yet, but it's weakened considerably.

    You can succeed. I know you can.
    CerebralEcstasy, Feb 7, 2018
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