Imposter syndrome (aka my brain hates me)

[BrokenSpokes]

1) Brain: “Hey you! It’s three AM! Wake TF up for no reason!”

2) Brain: “No, no you can’t fall right back to sleep, imma need you to look at your phone, no reason. It’s cool.”

3) Self: surfs Twitter for a few minutes, watches a YouTube video, reads a couple news stories.

4) <SIGH> Checks LitE

5) Sees story dropped from 4.95 to 4.94 and is no longer the #1 story, instead is “only” in a three way tie for first

6) Brain: “Hahaha you useless piece of shit! People finally recognize you’re a fucking fraud! Why did you ever bother writing in the first place?!”

7) Stares at ceiling for fifteen minutes wondering if crying would help me go back to sleep.

8) Brain: “Now you’ll never write again! Hahaha!”

9) *Opens Google docs* <type type type type> doesn’t sleep the rest of the night.

10) Brain: “........WTF is wrong with you?”


This is totally normal, right? Authors, your brain does this to you too, right?

Right?

 

[ChloeTzang]

1) Brain: “Hey you! It’s three AM! Wake TF up for no reason!”

2) Brain: “No, no you can’t fall right back to sleep, imma need you to look at your phone, no reason. It’s cool.”

3) Self: surfs Twitter for a few minutes, watches a YouTube video, reads a couple news stories.

4) <SIGH> Checks LitE

5) Sees story dropped from 4.95 to 4.94 and is no longer the #1 story, instead is “only” in a three way tie for first

6) Brain: “Hahaha you useless piece of shit! People finally recognize you’re a fucking fraud! Why did you ever bother writing in the first place?!”

7) Stares at ceiling for fifteen minutes wondering if crying would help me go back to sleep.

8) Brain: “Now you’ll never write again! Hahaha!”

9) *Opens Google docs* <type type type type> doesn’t sleep the rest of the night.

10) Brain: “........WTF is wrong with you?”


This is totally normal, right? Authors, your brain does this to you too, right?

Right?

Lol close. Really really close.in fact, I’m up now, writing..... at 2.45am. Only 15 minutes off.

 

[SimonDoom]

It's not quite 3 am and I'm here, writing, so I guess I know, somewhat, what this is like.

But the main reason has nothing to do with feeling like an impostor. I just don't sleep much, and I wake up very early, often.

I've let go of the whole story score thing. When I get a good score, I feel good. But if it drops, or if it never gets good to begin with, I don't let myself feel bad. I think about it and try to figure out if there's some useful information in the score that will help me write better the next time. Usually, there isn't, so I don't sweat it.

I've never had a story with a 4.95 score so I wouldn't know what it's like to see it dip to 4.94. I imagine I would be pleased to have a story with a score that's .13 higher than anything else I've ever written.

 

[ElectricBlue]

This is totally normal, right? Authors, your brain does this to you too, right?

Right?

Nope. Just you... And him over there ------> and her down the hall.

I seem to be blessedly immune from not being able to write, or obsessively needing to write. My trick is "side projects." I permit myself one primary work in progress, and one other. Sometimes they swap places, but on the whole, it works. I can go days without touching either one, it never bothers me. It just means my subconscious is bubbling along nicely.

 

[Handley_Page]

Nope. Just you... And him over there ------> and her down the hall.

I seem to be blessedly immune from not being able to write, or obsessively needing to write. My trick is "side projects." I permit myself one primary work in progress, and one other. Sometimes they swap places, but on the whole, it works. I can go days without touching either one, it never bothers me.
It just means my subconscious is bubbling along nicely.

In my case "my subconscious is bubbling along " reluctantly.

 

[BrokenSpokes]

BTW, I am aware

Just to be clear, I’m aware this post comes across as a gigantic humble-brag.

I’m more just continually astounded at my brain’s ability to reject all the positive criticism I’ve gotten, to ignore that I objectively know what I wrote was good, but still go spiraling down when the tiniest bit of negative feedback hits me like a train.

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

I normally wake up dead of night because I've convinced myself there's chocolate in the fridge, even though rational me knows we never bought any, and when I say we never bought any, we did, but i ate it all, but I go and look anyway, then 45 minutes later I go look again, in case the chocolate pixie came calling, or a rogue wormhole from the chocolate galaxy opened in the fridge and dropped off a few bars, then I go back and toss and turn in a haze of chocolate desire, then go check the fridge again for any miraculous chocolate-related events in there, then accidentally wake himself up and ask him where the chocolate is, and whinge until he gives in and goes and finds somewhere that sells chocolate at 3AM, buys several boxes, which will be gone by dinnertime the next day, and tells me I'm a miserable hag, bugger off and DO NOT DISTURB!!! Rinse and repeat for the rest of the week. This is how my brain works...

 

[Vix_Giovanni]

I empathize; I know imposter syndrome. I didn’t go to bed last night, I was up all night working. This writing thing is just a hobby; I had the #1 story site wide for about four months in 2019–somehow a pristine 5.00–and so I avoided Lit, forums and writing for most of that time because the score was giving me anxiety. I avoid praise in general for the same discomforting, guilt-inducing reasons. Someone I don’t even know asked me the other day what I do IRL, and keeps trying to reduce/redefine my work to financial advising to understand it; I feel embarrassed to have to correct their misunderstanding.

Real life continuously sweeps into my work; I guess cause I’m a new(ish) writer. In addition to other oversharing and personalization in it, my large-scale series’ story arcs is imposter syndrome.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Just to be clear, I’m aware this post comes across as a gigantic humble-brag.

I’m more just continually astounded at my brain’s ability to reject all the positive criticism I’ve gotten, to ignore that I objectively know what I wrote was good, but still go spiraling down when the tiniest bit of negative feedback hits me like a train.

You are very much not alone.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

5) Sees story dropped from 4.95 to 4.94 and is no longer the #1 story, instead is “only” in a three way tie for first

6) Brain: “Hahaha you useless piece of shit! People finally recognize you’re a fucking fraud! Why did you ever bother writing in the first place?!”

7) Stares at ceiling for fifteen minutes wondering if crying would help me go back to sleep.

8) Brain: “Now you’ll never write again! Hahaha!”

9) *Opens Google docs* <type type type type> doesn’t sleep the rest of the night.

10) Brain: “........WTF is wrong with you?”


This is totally normal, right? Authors, your brain does this to you too, right?

Right?

In the main, some self doubt is better than the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Thumbnail version - that's when people who aren't very good at something overestimate their abilities.

So, yeah it's annoying when your brain blows things out of proportion. But it sounds like it motivated you to write something else, thereby proving your brain wrong. And good on you!

{{and, yes, my brain does this to me too. Though usually about my profession. Not so much about my hobbies.}}

 

[yukonnights]

Nope. Just you... And him over there ------> and her down the hall.

I seem to be blessedly immune from not being able to write, or obsessively needing to write. My trick is "side projects." I permit myself one primary work in progress, and one other. Sometimes they swap places, but on the whole, it works. I can go days without touching either one, it never bothers me. It just means my subconscious is bubbling along nicely.

Hey EB — I just woke up, what's all the ruckus about? Oh — rolls over and goes back to sleep

Actually, I could probably be well served by a bit more angst over getting more writing done. I'm not sure why I'd be better off ... just seems like I should be