Self-Doubt–What Helps; What Doesn’t Help

Will this book be better than the last one? Will my outline help me write 50,000 words this month? Or will I get stuck–again? What about professional editors, beta readers, book designers? What if I don’t sell any books? How am I going to afford all this stuff? What if I don’t keep the momentum going after NaNoWriMo? What if I stop again at the first discouraging word? My self-doubt is as big as a McMansion and as deep as Lake Tahoe. 

What helps me write anyway when I have all this noise in my head? Affirmations and positive thinking help some people, but I’m not one of them. That’s like spraying Chanel au de Parfum on the garbage can. It still stinks. I’d simply be layering these hollow words over what I really think and feel, which is, “This sucks.” Creative visualization works for some people as well, but I’m too fearful to even visualize what I want. So what does work for me?

The Writer’s Channel on YouTube helps me a lot. Those vlogs that include speed typing help, because I can visualize that. There’s no image of me to interfere. Also those advertisements for basic cheap book designs help. I can visualize those with the titles in big foil letters and some version of my name in small print below.

Writing sprints, also called the Pomodoro method, also work for me. Like many people, I learned about these on NaNoWriMo.org. To keep myself writing, though, I have to think about just writing rather than turning out a pretty good draft. That probably won’t happen.

It is, therefore, much larger than winning Nanowrimo or achieving some level of success as a writer. It is replacing discouragement  with humility and openness to suggestions. I just have to do today’s work, whether I’m confident or not. 

I’ve always believed that I don’t have to have a positive attitude to get things done. I just have to do them. In the past, I let fear stop me. It still can if I think about all of my goals at once. But I can always do five minutes–or maybe a little more–writing, outlining, researching, or editing.

Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody has also helped me a great deal. I don’t sit down to outline a novel. Rather I sit down to plan some scenes within a very specific structure. 

My younger self could never have envisioned  what has happened to publishing in recent years. No one could have. But it shouldn’t have mattered if this is what I wanted to do. But it does. All of a sudden, I can envision a road to publication for myself. Not skyrocketing sales, not best-seller lists, just publishing books–right out in the open. 

At this point, I’d better not accept anything less than doing small chunks, one after the other. There’s no time left to allow procrastination, fear, or lack of confidence to stop me.