On Impostor Syndrome

Last year at this time, I was a little more than a week into NaNoWriMo. I had worked on that particular project for three previous NaNo events and by the end of 2020 would finally finish the first draft. There was a point where I worked on something—journal entry, blog post, short story, novel—every day for something like 73 days in a row. For the first time since I was 20, I felt fully like a writer.

These days, not so much.

Oh, there are reasons, of course. Between the wedding and the new home, everything has felt in flux for the last seven months. Even now, a change in our living situation (the departure of a roommate) has us still trying to find our rhythm here. I haven’t felt much like a writer of late. Last year, amid political instability and lockdowns, I felt like I was inching closer to starting my full-time writing career in earnest. This year, I’ve stalled out a bit, and I feel like a fraud.

One piece of advice I’ve tried to take to heart is to give myself grace. My wife reminds me—frequently—that I don’t need to put so much pressure on myself. Writing is so much more than just putting pen to paper (or hands to keyboard). Daydreaming is writing. Cataloguing experience is writing. Even talking about writing is writing. Writing isn’t something I’m doing strictly to try to make a living (although it would be nice to sell more books). I do this because I enjoy it. She’s right, of course. I write for the same reason that I love reading or I love movies. I love storytelling. Everything else is irrelevant at the moment. And I’m still a writer.

I’m skipping NaNoWriMo this year. It’s partly because I’m still working on a project I started in May of 2020. It’s partly because I don’t want to pressure myself for an idea, and pressure myself further to finish something. NaNoWriMo is a fun event, but it’s difficult, and unless you’re fully engaged, it’s hard to get through the month with your confidence intact. But mostly, I’m skipping NaNoWriMo to tell the voice in my head, the one calling me a fraud, that I have nothing to prove.

How about you guys? Do I have any writer friends skipping NaNo because of feeling like theyre not qualified? Any people running a small business having to remind themselves that they're running a business? Sound off in the comments!