At some point in the writing journey, every writer knows the feeling.
You sit down with the intention of writing. The computer is on, the laptop open and waiting, and the ideas are somewhere in your mind. But instead of writing, you make another cup of tea or coffee. You check emails or scroll endlessly on social media. And there is always another YouTube video to watch.
Or maybe there is something else that needs attention.
A little tidying up at home, or a visit to the shops. You decide that perhaps you’ll write tomorrow, when more inspired. But when tomorrow arrives, it looks remarkably like today, or the day before.
For many writers, procrastination is not always about laziness. It is about self-doubt and fear. A voice inside the mind that asks uncomfortable questions. Am I good enough? Has everything worth saying already been written? Who would want to read what I have to say?
And that voice has a name. Imposter syndrome, and it can fuel procrastination. For the last week or so, that has been the case for me. It started when I was reading through and editing a chapter from another project. I couldn’t get into it. What I read was a mishmash of words that were not coming together.
It felt easier to do something else.
Imposter syndrome affects writers of every level, from inexperienced to bestselling authors. It doesn’t matter where you are on the journey, because even writers who have had success find it still happens. The self-doubt and the fear of being “found out”.
The strange thing is that most readers probably don’t know about the doubts. They only see the finished piece. They are not going to read the paragraphs that were deleted, the false starts, or the time spent wondering if what you have written works. Or how the doubt was overcome.
And procrastination goes hand-in-hand with self-doubt. After all, you cannot fail at writing if you never begin. Or if you give up.
I don’t consider myself to be a perfectionist, yet I will often write and write again, checking and double-checking. Sooner or later, the decision has to be taken that what has been written is “good enough”.
Creativity grows through practice. Working through something that may never be published. A lesson learned. Writing that fails can teach you something. Meaningful writing can typically begin as an uncertain first draft.
Which takes me back to what I had written — that chapter. It read pretty bad. Some parts were good, some worked, but others were poor. It lacked continuity, a connection between the different parts. In places, it was boring.
So I did what I frequently do when doubt sets in. I went for a walk, a route around the country park near where I live. And the walk gave me an idea.
When I got back, I was able to rewrite the bad parts, or just edit them out. This draft of the chapter was completed, about a thousand words lighter, but the story was tighter. Words have a curious habit of leading to more words; sometimes it becomes necessary to cull what looks like filler.
Perhaps the main lesson is this: your inner critic and creative voice cannot speak at the same time. If the critic inside dominates, creativity steps back in self-doubt. Choose to keep writing despite those doubts, and creativity slowly returns.
Until the next time.
The fears may never disappear completely. They may accompany the writer through every article, story, chapter, and book. And while imposter syndrome may occasionally come back to tell you that you are not good enough, recognise it for what it is — another challenge to overcome. One shared by countless writers.
Keep on writing, because every finished piece once started as a blank page and a writer who chose to ignore the voice of doubt that said, “Not today.”
Find what works.
Maybe go for a walk.
Photo by Hanna Grace on Unsplash
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