Defeating the Demons of Doubt

A new friend sent me this email yesterday: "I know self-doubt comes to all writers, even successful ones like yourself. When those doubts come, what do you tell yourself?"

My first thought was: Hmmm. What DO I tell myself? Because right now I'm experiencing a level of self-doubt more intense than anything I've had in my previous forty years as a published children's book writer. I'm totally consumed with self-doubt! I'm paralyzed with self-doubt! I haven't written anything since a major rejection in January, weeping, wailing, and wallowing in self-doubt!

It is time for some stern self-talk.

But what am I supposed to say, given that my past platitudes don't seem to be working for me any longer? The chief platitude is that, when it comes to writing, and to life in general, it's the journey that matters. It's not reaching the dreamed-of destination of publication, but the joy in the writing itself: the process, not the product. It was so easy for me to say this when I was getting published with relative ease. Now that (to speak with frightening frankness) I'm not sure if I'll ever be published again, my glib assurances that publication isn't what matters, oh no, it's WRITING that matters, ring a bit hollow. 

For to be a WRITER, in almost every case, is to yearn for a READER, for that deep and beautiful form of human connection. To be an ACTOR is to yearn for an AUDIENCE. Few actors would be satisfied with delivering even the most heart-wrenching rendition of Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be" soliloquy merely to themselves in the bathroom mirror. Artists, musicians, chefs... all crave to share their creations with others,  and to have those creations appreciated by others. We just do.

So we start to doubt that this is ever going to happen. What if we NEVER get published? Or get published and our beloved book is a DUD? Or get published ONCE and never again? What if, what if, WHAT IF?

Huh, Claudia? What do you have to say NOW to your no longer smugly confident self?

Deep breath. Deep breath. Deep breath.

Okay.

1. It is impossible to know whether we will ever be published, or (if published) well reviewed and showered with accolades. As physicist Neils Bohr famously quipped, "Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future." We simply can't know this. It isn't ours to know. Stories abound of hugely successful books that were rejected many times before receiving an offer, or largely ignored after publication only to achieve posthumous glory. WE SIMPLY CAN'T KNOW.

2. But we CAN know with absolute certainty that NO unwritten book can EVER be published or indeed ever shared with any reader anywhere.

3. Publication comes in many forms. So actually, my first point, as written, is untrue. Today in the age of the internet, self-publication is increasingly respected and rewarding. Indeed, I'm self-publishing this blog post and expect to get a couple hundred readers as a result - a couple hundred other human beings who will read and ponder these words and perhaps draw benefit from them and maybe cherish them forever! Smaller publishers based outside of New York often lavish love  - and significant promotion - on their authors. I have one friend who has joyously published all her DOZENS of books with small publishers she finds through a modest amount of online research. I am pondering writing more poetry and trying to publish some of it, where publication will mean having the poems appear in a tiny publication read by hardly anybody and paying nothing whatsoever, but this will still please me enormously. There are so many different ways of being published. 

4. Finally, well, finally, the platitude I rejected above is, in the end, as true as anything else I've said here. If writing brings you joy, just DO IT. I miss writing. I miss it intensely. I miss lying on the couch with my mug of Swiss Miss hot chocolate beside me, scribbling lines on a blank page of narrow-ruled paper with my Pilot fine-tipped pen. I miss that little glow of satisfaction when I complete a page, or one single poem to share with a few friends. The fact is that I happen to love being a writer, which I realize more keenly now that I'm not letting myself be one. 

It might have been otherwise. I might have realized that I didn't miss writing, that the agony and ecstasy of it was too hard on my heart, and I would have a much happier life without the rollercoaster of emotions that comes with being a creator - and in particular, a creator who longs to share her creations with the wider world. If you are doubting whether you want to continue writing, or painting, or making music, those are doubts worth weighing. No one has to be a writer or an artist of any kind. We can walk away at any time (and then walk back at any time).  One friend did so happily, decades ago, saying she was tired of being "daunted, taunted, and haunted" by unpublished manuscripts. She hasn't had a moment of regret. 

So: doubt can be an enemy, but it can also be a friend. 

Which one it is can be up to us.