"So my first release. Tomorrow." She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.
"How do you feel?" I ask.
"Nervous. Wonderful. Terrified. Drowning in a sea of what-were-they-thinking-publishing-me and paralyzing self-doubt."
I smile. "Welcome to the fold."
"It gets easier, right? The doubt? The how did I ever think I could do this/this is one colossal joke/the seriously, I will single-handedly be the reason my publishing house closes its doors when it's realized my book is a major stinker? That goes away, right?"
I look across the table at her, my friend with the earnest eyes and the jaunty ponytail and I want to tell her that it does get better, that just like in every other career doubt fades as skillset and authenticity grow because that would be the right thing to say and it's January and a new year is dawning and all that but...
"No."
I haven't met a writer yet who doesn't toil with unrelenting self-doubt. Will this book be the one that hits or the dead weight that pulls my career into the gloomy abyss of I'm-going-to-have-to-take-a-job-where-I-wear-pants? Is the book that blows my cover and proves to the world that, regardless of a dozen books under my belt, I'm a fraud?
My friend's brow furrows and I swear I can see her ponytail lose a half-inch of it's jaunty swishyness. "Then--then--what do you do?"
A flurry of ideas crash into my subconscious, the majority having to do with booze or chocolate, and I'm reaching for the pearl of wisdom that's more The Little Engine That Could and less Jack Daniels, one unmentionable bar night and a trucker with two first names.
"You just do."
We're silent for a moment, staring at each other over two half-eaten salads, one spiral-bound notebook, and a laptop rapidly losing its juice. But I'm on to something.
Writers keep writing. That's what we do. Whether its confidence or neurosis or stupidity that outweighs our doubts--and sometimes it can be all three--we keep going. The doubt isn't going anywhere, that's a given, because each time we begin a new story or launch a new book we're starting from square one with that sense that this could be my sink-or-swim book. But we're also starting at the same square one that is teaming with excitement, teaming with the flipside of doubt: hope. You may doubt that your book is any good, but there is that little flicker of hope--from a friend or coworker who read it, from an early review or an excited editor--this could be the one.
The trick is not letting the doubt prevail. You know it will be there, so welcome it in. Sit it down, offer it a cup of tea and a couple hours of, "yes, this will be the first book in history so bad that a law will be passed to prevent me from ever opening a WORD doc ever again. Ever." Then send it on its way. Consider it a part of the process like editing or acknowledgements or striking the balance between a boring bio and lying about your history as a dog food tester and move on.
Every artist doubts their greatness throughout his or her career. It's that charming neurosis that makes us so wonderfully mercurial and melodramatic. So write with reckless abandon. Then doubt it. And then move on.
Are the words you put on the page today the best that have ever been written? I don't know. Are they the worst? I doubt it.
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