Self doubt can be a creative writing killer.
You're starting to write a new work and all of a sudden you sit there and think
what if this is no good? What if nobody likes my work?
What if everybody hates it? And by default, what if everyone hates me?
Hi, I'm Kat Clay. I'm a writer.
And I'm here to give you a pep talk today about conquering self
doubt. If there's one thing you take away from this video today,
know that you can do this thing. I believe in you.
I'm going to take you through some of the steps that I've used and the practical
processes to conquer self doubt and remind yourself that you
are worthy as a writer and that you can write.
So stick around, hit subscribe, and let's get into it.
The first thing you need to know about self doubt is that everybody gets it,
whether you're a seasoned pro or whether you're just starting out as an author,
everyone gets self doubt.
A lot of this self doubt actually stems from a fear of rejection.
We don't want other people to reject our work.
And writing is an industry that is filled with rejection.
It's really important to remember that rejection.
Isn't always about the quality of your writing and it's not personal
agents.
Editors and publishers are all human beings with their own stresses and
their own problems.
A lot of the time rejections can stem from things like market needs,
or we have too many stories in the genre or they're having a bad day when they
were reading the slush pile. Whenever you start to feel this self doubt,
creeping in,
it's really important to just sit with that feeling for a little bit and kind of
identify how you are feeling, write it down.
If it helps you to understand it,
those kinds of pesky questions of the back of your mind,
once you've identified those feelings of self doubt and those questions in your
head,
why don't you take a step back and you need to look for the evidence that proves
the opposite of what you're thinking. So if you're a new writer,
think about a time that someone gave you positive feedback on your writing.
Or think about the reasons why you decided to become a writer
in the first place. If you're more established.
What about thinking about the time you were shortlisted for an award or the time
that someone wrote you about your work?
These are all things that are really important to remind yourself of in those
moments of self doubt.
It's also really important to remember why you got into writing in the first
place, unless it was for fame and fortune,
which are probably not great goals to have as a writer.
But remind yourself why you wanted to write in the first place.
What are you trying to say about the world that's important?
And that helps put this in perspective because self doubt comes from a
fear of judgment.
If you're taking away that judgment and focusing it back on your reasons for
writing,
it shifts that focus from the self doubt to the confidence that
you can have in your work and what you believe in one of my favourite ways to
beat self doubt as a writer is to have a cheer squad.
It's really important to collect a couple of good friends who have your back no
matter what and support your writing career and your writing persists.
And so whenever you feel self doubt, send them a message and say, Hey,
I'm feeling a bit down about my writing.
And hopefully they will smother you with love and messages of support.
When you sit down to write, you need to remember that writing,
isn't a competition.
It's not good to sit down and compare yourself to other writers like this isn't
as good as so. And so who's really famous.
You're never going to write like them. You're going to write like you.
And that should be your aim. You bring a unique perspective to the world.
That's nobody else's so try to write like yourself.
Another thing to remind yourself constantly when you're writing is that first
drafts are always terrible. No matter the writer,
the first draft is exactly that: a draft.
It is there to put everything down on paper.
What I call the skeleton of the story so that you can dress it up later when you
begin to edit. It is never going to be perfect the first go.
Nobody writes a book like that, and you need to accept that.
It's just there to get out all that dross so that you can fix it up later.
If I'm not writing. And I need a pep talk, apart from watching YouTube videos,
I will read biographies, autobiographies,
and pieces by other writers about the process of writing and about
how they came to be a writer. One of my all time,
favourite stories that I remind myself a lot of when I'm feeling down
is from Margaret Atwood's book, Negotiating with the Dead.
And in that book, when she was really early in her career,
she talks about howshe organized her own tours for her poetry books.
And there's a scene in which she is hauling her poetry books through the snow
on a sled to get to a book talk. If I'm having a bad day,
I just think about Margaret Atwood wandering through the snow in order to
distribute her books.
It's a really great reminder that everybody starts somewhere,
no matter how famous, how well known, how incredible they are as a writer,
they all had to start somewhere. They all have moments of self doubt.
You are not a fraud or a phoney. You got this. I believe in you.
This is your little pep talk for today. If you've enjoyed it, I would love it.
If you hit subscribe for more writing advice, nerd videos,
all of that sort of stuff. I hope you have a great day.
And remember to keep writing.