Flash in the Pan
Some time in March this year, a few friends and I were playing a card game. You’ve probably seen it around — it’s a purpose-driven game called We Are Not Really Strangers. The gameplay is simple. You go around the room, picking cards from different decks (perception, connection, reflection), and answering the questions on them. A few of us were betting on another friend being the first to cry; she had a reputation for being sentimental, something we delighted in and teased her for, in equal measure. But we hadn’t gotten very far when I drew a card that asked what it was about myself I was most afraid for people to know. I said, calmly, that I was worried all the people who had believed (and invested!) in me would realise that I was a talentless hack, and then promptly burst into tears.
Now, I think I have some talent. If nothing else, I am extremely good at not being taken advantage of, because I am not shy, which is half the battle won. I am a firm negotiator, and can make a perfect sunny-side-up egg. I also enjoy my own company, and rarely suffer from loneliness, despite frequently being alone. But in spite of all that, I live in fear. Not that I’ll wake up one day and know that everything I’ve ever tried to do has been trash, but that everyone else will know it too.
For a long time, I thought that this had to do with being in a state of potential. As an emerging writer, with no agent, no book deal, and no contract, it can feel like you’re a bit of a wildcard. It was alright — well, not alright, just better — when I was still working full-time in Singapore, and scribbling quietly on the side. I had not yet seriously declared my intention to write. As long as no one else knew, my writing could be worthy as long as I deemed it so. But once I left everything behind to move across continents for my MFA, the stakes shifted. Suddenly, failure loomed. It could go either way: now that strangers could evaluate my fiction, I might turn out to be a decent writer, or I might just be a hack. Probably a hack.
The first year of my MFA passed anxiously. I read everything, wrote nonstop, and was perpetually dissatisfied with my work. On the surface, this life — focused exclusively on reading and writing — was all I’d ever wanted. But underneath it was the creeping truth that I alone knew: that despite my enthusiasm, despite the encouragement of everyone back home, despite the scholarships — I had scammed everyone. I wasn’t a writer. I was an actress. I was doing a good job of pretending to write, and I worked hard at writing, but nothing I wrote was of value. It was all silly, trite, and flat. Don’t get me wrong — the act of writing brought nothing but joy. The problem was what came after. Whenever I read my own words, I wanted to cry. In class, whenever someone complimented my writing, I despaired. You’ve been taken in, I wanted to say. This is trash. And if you can’t see it, then you’re not a good reader either.
I don’t always feel this way. For a very brief moment, in April, after finishing the first draft of my novel, I was invincible. I wrote a book, girl! No one can take that away from me. It was really hard! This feeling lasted two months. Then, I began to fear the novel. I’d printed and bound it, all 135,000 words of it, and when I looked at it, the physical heft of that thing, I felt like throwing up. What if it was trash? It was probably trash. The worst part was, I’d already told the whole wide world that I’d finished my first draft. I’d been so happy! I’d drunk all the celebratory wine, gotten fat on all the roasted duck and noodles. And now the time of reckoning had come, and I would have to inform everyone just how mistaken I was. I hadn’t written a book. I’d spun a tome of sentimental drivel! I told my partner this, crying one night after too much wine. He didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t let anyone read it yet; for all he knew, it could really be trash.
I like your stories, he finally volunteered.
BUT YOU’RE OBLIGED TO!
The next time I sent him a story, he said, I don’t like this one.
I replied: you’re just saying that so the next time you say you like something, I’ll believe you.
He looked at me like I was crazy. Which, you know, I probably am.
This cycle of invincibility and paranoia, invincibility and paranoia, has persisted for most of my writing life. It’s interesting, because in my previous job, I felt none of this. I didn’t care if people didn’t like me, I liked me. But with writing, every small win (I finished a story! I got an acceptance! I finished a draft!) has simply been followed by more panic, and the ever-accumulating dread that when I finally submit my book out into the world, it’ll be met with the awkward silence of those who’ve realised they’ve misjudged me.
I do understand, objectively, that impostor syndrome plagues most of us, no matter what industry we’re in. Someone I know spent the first three years of his relationship worrying about the moment his girlfriend would realise how uninteresting he really was; now they’re getting married. Another friend of mine describes the primary feeling she has upon being promoted at work as a tsunami of panic and guilt.
But the worst part, I think, of imposter syndrome, is that you might not be having it. That everyone else suffers from it, but you, you are the real deal. Your failure is all yours, baby. Soak the disappointment in.
I’d hoped that this feeling would go away eventually, but when I mentioned this, a friend, far further along the writing life with multiple books and awards under her belt, laughed. Girl, she said. Get used to it. This is your whole life now.
It should have come as no surprise. Accepting dread seems to be the necessary flipside — of the exhilaration that living a life in pursuit of creation entails. As per conventional wisdom, the way forward is not in overcoming, but enduring. And yet, how? What are the mechanics of this endurance, of turning the other cheek and putting pen to paper through the fear? Reader, I have no answer for you. But sit with me, if you will, in the space of regardless, in this feeling of despite and delight. Know, in your fear, that the rest of us are here too: commiserating, doubting, and loving.
