For a while now, I've been seriously lacking confidence in my abilities as a writer - or, more specifically, in my ability to succeed as a *professional* writer. I've had a few positive moments, but day to day, I feel like a failure.
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A major factor in this has been some bad/stressful experiences I've had with the industry itself - some recent, some much older. Normally, I'm pretty good at shrugging things off and carrying on, but I've also been mentally and physically sick for the better part of 5 years, so.
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Paradoxically, it's during this time that I've also felt as though I'm doing my best actual writing. I *know* that I've developed. I *know* that I've improved enormously since my first book came out in 2010, and that I will continue to improve. But.
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The thing is, feeling that I'm doing good writing isn't the same as believing that I'll be able to get it published. And *that* particular disconnect is somehow more disheartening than if I just thought my work was bad, because at least then, it's on *me* to improve.
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But where I feel like I've failed in professional publishing is an inability to successfully navigate professional relationships. Which is super disconcerting for me, because I'm an extrovert! I am nominally Very Good At People!
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What I am evidently NOT good at is separating "this person is being friendly to me because we're professional colleagues" from "this person is both a colleague and a friend". My default, where I get along with someone, is pretty much always to assume the latter.
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Which, on the surface, shouldn't seem like a bad thing! But in professional contexts - and particularly in professional relationships which take place almost entirely online - it's an assumption without real basis, and it means I tend to misjudge some basic stuff.
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First & foremost: I am TERRIBLE at taking the time to weigh offers and opportunities. My default assumption is terror that, if I don't accept them IMMEDIATELY, they'll be gone forever. Like if a friend asks me to see a movie w. them & I say no, of COURSE they'll ask someone else!
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In friendship terms, leaving somebody hanging while you umm and aahhh about an offer of Doing Something Together is an absolute dick move. But professionally, it's the complete opposite. Unless there's a super tight deadline, expecting someone to reply right away is a red flag.
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As such, I'm also bad at setting professional boundaries or asking for things I need, because I view those requests as a burden. I'm always worried that I'm asking too much, or that asking will see the person, whoever it is, dislike me - because I'm worried about being Friends.
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But professional relationships are not like friendships. Like, yes, obviously you can have colleagues who are also friends, but that's not the default starting point with strangers. You don't need to be loved; you need mutual respect and to work well together.
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With the benefit of hindsight, I can pinpoint exactly where I've made missteps or wrong assumptions and what to do better next time. And that's good! That's a positive thing to acknowledge, and part of why I wanted to write this thread.
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But the reason I'm feeling especially self-conscious *now* is because, having had these realisations a while ago, my first attempts to truly act on them - to set a professional boundary and push back when something upset me - blew up in my face *spectacularly*.
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I won't go into the specifics of what happened, or with whom; it's not relevant here. But since then, I've been absolutely paralysed. The experience was so awful that I'm constantly in the shadow of it. I'm terrified of a repeat performance. I can't be treated like that again.
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Even typing this, my pulse and breathing are altered. Just. I'm compartmentalised by nature, so it doesn't hang over me day to day, but when I think about publishing - when I think about needing to put my work out there - I freeze up.
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It's so, so stressful, and of course, the nature of the industry is that it's largely verboten to talk about your bad industry experiences with other people in the industry. It makes you a complainer. It is Not Done.
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But I need to talk about it, if only in this very vague way, because I need to try and progress past it, too. This thread is my compromise. For the sake of my mental health, I *need* to be able to be open about the things that impact it, and why.
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And I also need to remind myself - in public, where I can't pretend I never said it or believed it - that I've had setbacks before, and doubtless will again, but that persistence, a willingness to improve and a bone-deep love of writing will get me through them.
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My final year ofschool, I was taking more subjects than anyone else in my grade. I was depressed, insomniac - and determined to write. As tired, as broken, as busy as I was, I still had a printout of my then-manuscript with me, editing on the train and under my desk at school.
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A friend who knew me then, still one of my best, has said he always marvelled at how determined I was then to be a writer; how core to me it was, in the face of everything else. How it never wavered. That's who I need to be again: the stubborn girl on the train, red pen in hand.
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And I will be. I will be. I will be. So fucking help me, I will channel the spirit of Miranda's Hamilton and write that shit into existence, because I don't know any other way to be.
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When I can't write - when I'm afraid to write; when I'm paralysed by the fear that my writing won't succeed or matter - it's like I'm absent within myself. I curl up in some fundamental way, sinking into a self-made carapace of procrastination and self-deluding bullshit.
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And I don't want to do that anymore. I want to acknowledge what I'm afraid of, and name it, and move on from it, or I'll be stuck in my own shelled head forever.
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So. I'm not really sure how to wrap this up, because there's not a neat conclusion to things like this. I know my own habits of fooling myself; that doesn't make me immune to them. But I'm going to try, because I have to. Because to do anything less would be a disservice.
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Growing up with creative aspirations, it's easy to assume that there's going to come a point when you know you've Made It; when you're secure in yourself and never doubt thereafter. But that's bullshit, I think. Even the best artists in the world have moments of self-doubt.
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"Stay afraid, but do it anyway." That's what Carrie Fisher said, and in honour of her glitter-flinging, bird-flipping spirit, that's what I'm going to do. Stay afraid, but do it anyway.
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