10 Mindset Shifts To Take Everytime You Start feeling like an Imposter as a (Fiction)Writer
I don’t know how it is for planners, but for pantsers* (see at the end of the blog if you’re not familiar with the term), outlining a story is just the most outrageous way to start writing yet, one that still makes sense. I’m a pantser but I also have a (very) structured -and active- mind, which can be both a problem and a blessing. Backing up, I’m a writer in my 20s, and at the moment, I’m running this blog and my goal is to become a published writer.
Imagine setting an outline for a plot that’s been on your mind and due to the pace of your life, the events that you have no control over and their aftermath on your psyche and your mind at the back processing everything every single moment, you come back to the plot after ‘’sleeping on it’’ your first thought is “I need to rewrite this again’’. Now, the mental picture gets more accurate if you sprinkle a little bit of ‘’I need to get it right on the first shot’’ mindset on it. To top it all, by now, you’ve already created about 4 to 5 unfinished drafts that you’ve all anticipated as a result of an outline that no longer makes sense to you.
This cycle is bound to make the best of us mad, and it is not one that I’m unfamiliar with. In fact, with my very structured and chaotic mind, I get to taste the best -and worst- of both worlds. Fortunately, when in crisis, I’m all about shifting perspective, and with that in mind, here are 10 mind shits I have taken upon myself to make the most out of the moments where I feel like an outsider to my own writing.
1. I get to start afresh
The biggest turning point for me was realizing that what was inspiring to me once doesn’t necessarily have to inspire me now and the sooner I accepted that, the more enriching I could make my work. That being said, to keep doing what I enjoy — writing, I had to move on from that fixed mindset of ‘’I’ve wasted time writing that draft’’ to ‘’I have more and better elements to get started again now’’.
2. I get to learn more about the technical aspect of writing
The last time I felt like an outsider to my own writing, I decided this was the ‘’perfect’’ time to learn about points of view. Now, I generally love looking into the technical aspects like how many words each genre needs to have, and how much time I need to finish a manuscript minimum, but the difference between someone who writes and someone who likes the idea of writing is that the former would do this research with the intention of their story in mind.
3. I build more confidence by listening to my gut feeling
I feel strangely but especially grateful every time I leave a draft and I do not feel ‘’bad’’ about it. Sometimes, I just have to tune in to that voice that knows that something is not working instead of becoming a mindless operator of the system I had for myself. Every time I chose to listen to my intuition -peculiarly when it was recursive- I gained more points in my level of confidence as an artist.
4. I’m better prepared to do research
I love doing research. In fact so much that it is what keeps me going when I walk away from social media for some time. Much like learning about the technical aspect of writing, doing research with the intention of learning more elements about my story allows me to feel more structured and more confident about adding my own ‘’flare’’ to it at the writing stage.
5. Feeling like an imposter doesn’t reflect my potential as a writer rather I’m growing and that is a -very- good thing
One of the secrets behind authenticity is the pace of life that each one of us has. In a year, my pace has changed from being relatively slow and in control to becoming one I could hardly keep up with. Now that’s life and we do not have a say in it 99% of the time. But the thing about an inexact science such as writing is that fortunately for me, it can adapt itself to such change and I realized that if my writing didn’t reflect that change, then indirectly I was distancing myself from my true voice; distancing myself from my life resulted in me distancing myself from my voice and hence the story I was writing. So every time I feel like I’m resisting something, I take a break before I have to feel like I’m writing in a voice other than mine.
6. I have time to work on my self-esteem as a writer
Who am I as a writer? Now I feel like all of us artists and aspiring artists out there spend a lifetime defining and redefining that. I think that self-esteem as an artist is really tricky; there is no way of measuring it and most of the time, even after getting positive feedback, it comes to existential questions such as: ‘’Why am I still doing this?’’. Fortunately, art requires a little bit of play, and feeling like an outsider to my own artistic expression gave me the perspective I couldn’t have when I was ‘’inside’’ my writing, and that was going to do nothing but enrich my story and the way I tell it.
7. It teaches me to stop when I have to; taking a break doesn’t mean giving up
The people that impress me lately are those with some kind of discipline, and when we’re adults, we choose what we want to be most disciplined at. The thing; however, that we forget to think about talking about discipline is the element of rest. See, when we have essential commitments such as work and family, rest really does seem like a privilege. But when it comes to a creative goal such as getting a book published, rest becomes paramount. I think of it this way, at times when I feel like I’m out of sync, much like during meditation when done the first time, the most important thing to keep in mind when I’m not writing is to find my way back.
8. I get to take more risks and experiment to figure out ‘’what was missing
Something about deleting a draft seems scary. In theory, starting afresh is just the answer we could be looking for but in practice, it seems daunting. That’s why, I think that it is good to much better to do that when things start to make sense. For instance, I would not delete a draft when I’m still at the ‘’gut feeling’’ stage, I would wait until I have a better grasp of the story from doing research, sleeping on it, learning more about the technicalities, and giving myself time and that brings me to …
9. I get more … time
Time really is a wonderful tool for an artist if they master how to not stress around it. Now being pantser, by definition, it is less likely for me to wait until I find an outline before I’ve opened a new document and I’ve started writing. Yet, that doesn’t have to mean that I will be stuck in the cycle I’ve mentioned earlier, it just means that I have my own sense of when it is ‘’the right time’’ to get started again. Time is of great value to being an artist. Without giving ourselves and our pieces of art time to develop and evolve, chances are we would all be stuck in that cycle of false hopes and promises and our dreams will remain just that; dreams.
10. Rather than perfecting my writing, I become professional about it
My last and by no means least insight that I have gained lately is that the idea of perfection is built on expectations. However, being professional is an attitude that I can adapt whenever I’m on my writing journey. The importance of this insight was the clearest to me when my very structured but chaotic mind was emitting anxiety about what I should have done by now, at 24 years old (just became 24 this November!), and the way I felt seeing what that nervous, fearful and anxious energy was doing to the quality of my writing. At that moment, I had to choose between expectations and possibilities and I’ve made my choice.
BONUS: What it means for me to be professional about my writing.
In simple words, it means showing up. Now that I’ve already established that I like and support the idea of commitment, being professional about my writing allows me to treat it like an element that makes my life the way I want to be rather than an accessory that I can take on and off whenever I ‘’feel’’ like it. Eventually, it really comes down to building a system and holding myself accountable when nobody is looking.
At the same time, being professional about my writing means not taking every single time I couldn’t write more than two words on my draft as a meter for my potential as a writer. In fact, another game-changing realization was that mindset was a rotten residue most of us left with from childhood when the reward system was dysfunctional; when we did well, we wouldn’t get the applause we hoped for but when made a mistake, it felt like the end of the world as we knew it then.
Learning how to be healthy adults in this world as we know it now is the way and the answer to freeing ourselves from that thinking. We are the parent and the child merged into one person who has no one but themselves to fulfill and validate their potential. It is time to wake up, take a cold shower, and dust off those residues that are no longer serving who we want to be. Thank you.
Author’s note:
*Pantser: a term most commonly applied to fiction writers, especially novelists, who write their stories “by the seat of their pants.” The opposite would be a plotter, or someone who uses outlines to help plot out their novels. [..] (taken from ‘’What’s a Pantser in Writing’’ on Writer’s Digest)
Thank you for participating in my last writing update! I hope you enjoyed this update! Stay tuned for the next blog prompts.
Until then, be gentle.
