Imposter Syndrome

So, before I get into today’s topic, a quick update:

I didn’t get anything written for that week’s critique session, but I did get something in for this week’s. I’m working on a short story and then beginning a new novel all around a basic idea that wormed itself into my head. Aztec cyberpunk. Latino representation in pop culture is severely lacking, same as in fantasy and sci-fi. Write what you want to read, right? It helps when the idea worming its way through your skull is cool as shit.

I’ve also started to hear back from beta readers. Some of them. Setting aside the anxiety that comes with sharing your complete WIP with friends, family, and strangers, let’s talk about the anxiety of when they start giving you feedback.

Which leads us into today’s topic: Imposter syndrome.

If you’re like me, you’ve heard this thrown around the writing community often. Probably even other communities. From the context, it’s pretty easy to figure out what it is. You think you’re a fraud, that you don’t deserve or haven’t earned your accomplishments, and that at any moment you’re going to be exposed for the snake you are.

Yikes.

Also… yes.

I mean, the feeling always made sense to me, but I never really started to feel it until recently. I guess that’s when I started to “accomplish” things in my writing profession. Published short stories, a writing podcast, a successful writing group, a decent author platform… Gods, even as I type them out they feel fake. See what I mean? I feel like I have to curtail my excitement because I’m not good enough. Fuck you, brain. As if you didn’t pull enough bullshit with me already.

So, I wanted to talk about this now because I got a massive wave of the ole Imposter Syndrome over the last couple days. One of my betas finished reading my draft in less than 24 hours (first thought: shit, it isn’t long enough) and then proceeded to tell me all the things she liked about it. I tried to ask questions to lead the witness, trying to pick out things she didn’t like, but I was unsuccessful.

Here I am, dealing with the embarrassment of someone saying positive things about my book, all the while having a voice in my head screaming things like they’re lying, I shouldn’t trust what they’re saying, that they’re only saying those things to be nice and non-confrontational, and that I’m garbage.

How the hell do you deal with that? It feels like I’m disassociating with reality. Makes me wonder what it’s like to be a mentally healthy person.

I’m writing this down, not because I believe these things. Obviously, I don’t. I’m crazy. But a part of me recognizes these things are (probably) true and that I need to repeat them as a mantra. Maybe it’ll help you, too.

1) Trust in your accomplishments, whatever their size. Your only comparison is past-you. If you have accomplished more than past-you has, you’re on the right path.

2) Trust in others. You chose them to expose yourself to and get feedback from. What’s the point of asking them for that feedback if you aren’t going to listen to it? I suppose, in this context, I’m referring to positive feedback, but this is especially true for negative (constructive) feedback. We’re trying to grow, right?

3) Talk it out. I have an amazing support network between friends, family, and my writing community that I am so thankful for. I can’t imagine trying to do this alone. Just like writing, which cannot exist in a vacuum, neither can you. Get outside your own head. Quiet the internal voices with supportive external ones.

Writing all this out has calmed me a little. Actually, to be fair, I started calming down the moment this blog topic hit me and I began to outline it. Getting all this from out of my gothic horror-themed head was helpful. Hopefully it has helped you, too.

Now get out there and keep working towards those accomplishments!

Another Day, Another Draft

Alright, let me take a moment to really revel in my accomplishment. Toot my own horn and shit. I finished another draft of Rat today! Rat v7.0 is being sent out to my beta readers right now and I am so gods-damned fucking excited!

Pardon my French.

But COME ON! In less than two years I’ve gone from a blob of a story idea through six revisions and come out the other end for a second round of beta reads! And this shit was hard. God, editing? I mean, if you’re new hear, you won’t have heard about my loathing for editing, but the rest of you know… editing is HELL.

It is gods damned satisfying in the end, though. Man.

I’m laughing, because there’s nothing like a deadline to light a fire under your ass.

I had a previous deadline of May 30th in my head, so I was slacking with my editing. Especially since, you know, editing is the worst. Then I found out that the deadline for my beta draft to be ready was May 1st, not the 30th. Shit. Better get on it.

Then I had an opportunity to move my beta up three weeks.

SHIT.

So I went for it. I took a bit of a break from my day job in terms of hours (yay being a contractor) and got it done. I technically have until midnight tonight to do it, but I finished it in the morning and feel damn good about it. Even sent it out to my dad, finally. First time he’s reading the novel in its entirety.

What’s next, then? Laying around? Relaxing?

Unfortunately, no. I have to write something for this Sunday’s critique and I’ve actually had a few ideas kicking around my head that I want to at least outline or something. The work never ends, but it’s nice to have a sense of accomplishment. Time to chase it some more!

Action

Well, unfortunately, I was unable to be on the Action episode over at The Genre Hustle this week, but my fellow co-hosts and our guest, Kate (@geekgril42 on Twitter), did a fantastic job. I have THOUGHTS, however!

First of all, if you listened to episode one of this season, Anton mentioned a professor he had that said something along the lines that sarcasm is violence. I agree, and I think that goes in line with the point Jane was trying to make. Dialogue can be action, too!

That being said, I just needed to fanboy about my favorite, current author.

Yes, I’m going to talk about Lord Grimdark himself, Joe Abercrombie (@LordGrimdark on Twitter).

YES YES I TALK ABOUT HIM ALL THE TIME AND WE’VE DEFINITELY TALKED ABOUT JOE ABERCROMBIE ON THE PODCAST BUT HOLY SHITBALLS HAVE YOU GUYS READ HIS ACTION SCENES?

Also, spoilers ahead.

Dialogue as action is all well and good and I support what you’re saying, Jane, but come on. The first time we meet the Bloody Nine in The Blade Itself? The cavalry charge in Best Served Cold? Logen’s fist fight in Red Country? Joe Abercrombie is a master.

Don’t misunderstand me. He doesn’t just have violence for violence’s sake. Sure, it’s epic fantasy/grim dark (see episode 4 of this season for a discussion on that mess) and there’s an expectation for violence, but holy crap is it earned.

I ain’t talking about gorey, gratuitous violence. I’m talking about brutal, hard hitting, fast action. It serves the story, it serves the pacing, it serves the characters. When we finally meet the Bloody Nine, it’s after an entire gods-damned book of him holding back. It is the biggest build up in violent history! Everything he’s done, his entire world view… talk about a character arc! If you haven’t read it, go read it.

So, yes, action needs to serve a purpose. Most people (but not all) don’t want to sit through a slugfest of a chapter with only action. Moderation in all things and, as we hammered in season one, do double duty!

Great job, co-hosts. Way to keep it on topic and avoid too much author repetition.

And the rest of you, talk to you soon.

The Curse of Season Two

Well, this last month has been bananas.

Season 2 of The Genre Hustle launched and we’re only 4 episodes in (listen to the latest one here), but we’ve had great response so far. It’s very satisfying and empowering to have something you worked so hard at get any form of attention. It is, however, a lot of fucking work.

Let’s set aside the planning, recording, editing, mixing, publishing, and marketing of the podcast for a moment so I can tell you all about…

THE CURSE OF SEASON TWO

Last October, we recorded a handful of episodes so that we would have them in the bag and when it came time to launch season 2, we would be prepared. February rolls around, though, and we find out the audio files are corrupted. Nothing we can do and it was easy to miss when we recorded them because the artifacts (audio lingo for crackles and pops) didn’t start until 3-5 minutes into each episode and got progressively worse.

5 episodes down the tube, needing to be recorded, weeks before our planned release date.

Fine, whatever, shit happens and WE CAN DO THIS!

We start re-recording, get one episode done, break for lunch, and when we come back our audio interface is fried. DOA. Kaput.

Shit.

We get another, it’s delivered in a few days, we make it work. We scramble. We put in the hours.

And we do it. Phew. Just in time.

Since then, there have been some hiccups, but it seems like we’ve broken the curse and, though I wouldn’t say it’s smooth sailing, we’re chugging along. After all that, to have the interaction with our audience we’ve had, to see the response to our episodes and the number of listens, has been amazing. It’s crazy to think we’d be at this point after only a year of doing this, but we’re excited for everything else that’s coming, too.

Of course, my blog writing has plummeted, but there’s only so many hours in a day, ya know?

I’ll try to keep in better touch with you all, but in the meantime, I’d love to hear what accomplishments you’ve had lately, what obstacles you’ve had to overcome, and how you did it!

See My Point (of View)?

Phew, what a tough one.

That short story, the one that had been gathering dust in a drawer and that I needed outside motivation to start working on? Yeah, that one. I re-wrote it in a different point of view and felt like it opened up to me. It felt like I had made the right choice, finally, It felt good.

I’m still editing it. I just got critique on it from my writing group and I’ve got some more work to do on it, but I think in the next week or two, I’ll be ready to start submitting it to magazines and other publications.

Which means, I’ll be getting back to my novel.

Yeah, yeah, I didn’t get to round 2 of my novel edits when I said I would. I didn’t get to much of anything the last couple weeks. There’s been a bit of a clusterfuck with one of my projects that required my attention. There was also Apex Legends and Enderal. Felt good to game a little again, but I got my fill after a few days and wasn’t sucked back into that dark place. That clusterfuck is also getting handled.

But what I want to talk about is the short story. What clicked, how, and what it meant.

I changed the point of view from third person to first. I changed the tense to present. I reframed the narrative so that the narrator is speaking to his loved on directly.

At first, it felt pretentious. I usually think first person is pretentious. I tolerate it a lot better in short stories, but in full length novels I just can’t get on board. I know that’s my own failing. I know that Borne by Jeff Vandermeer and N.K. Jemsin’s the Fifth Season are highly celebrated and critically acclaimed, but first person point of view killed those for me.

But here I am with a first person short story in hand and, damn it, it feels right. I felt emotionally connected to the person I was writing. I sunk into it. It was an amazing feeling. The feeling of it being pretentious, the Imposter Syndrome, still creeps into my mind when I think about it, but I remind myself of how it felt when I was rewriting it. Of the warm sensation, like sinking into bathwater, as I got in this guy’s head and wrote as him.

It was beautiful.

What did I learn? Not much. First person still makes me feel weird when I read it. I still have Imposter Syndrome. But I did learn that I can write in first person sometimes. That I’m able to make the right decision to connect with what I’m writing and produce something I can actually feel decent about.

Ha, such high hopes, right? Let us all strive to produce something we feel decent about… Such lofty goals.

Baby steps, friends. We can get there. Eventually.