At 10:55 a.m. on Saturday morning, I passed the fifty-thousand-word mark for the novel I’m drafting. I was pretty excited. This story is actually happening, I thought.
But over the next few hours, I discovered several problems with that story. The language my protagonist was using isn’t the language he’d use if he’s from where I want him to be from, which creates some issues. I heard that the style I’m writing in isn’t some readers’ favorite, so I began wondering if the words I spent hours on are even any good.
I haven’t been able to write much for several days.
Writing is difficult. Especially for writers. We wonder if hard feedback or reviews are valuable enough to listen to, to take action on. We face long days where we think we cannot write another word. Words enter our mind on repeat: Am I doing the right thing? Am I writing this the way it should be written?
Probably it’s a side effect of being a writer. But I doubt myself and my work all the time. There’s something about crafting sentences and stories that makes you wonder, Can I really do this? Yeah! Yeah? No, I can’t. Right?
Writing this newsletter has reminded me of a few things:
It’s a fact of being a writer that you won’t always know what to write.
It’s a fact of making things that it won’t always be easy, and that the people who finish things are just those who stick with the process.
It’s a fact of being human that you’ll mess up, and you can’t get so stuck on the mistakes that you don’t keep going.
Jerry Jenkins, one of my favorite writers, says to turn this fear, this doubt, into humility. Because yeah, you’re probably not as good as you think. But that’s a good thing—because that humility can motivate you to work hard at doing the best work you can.
Doubt will come. I know that for sure. But I have to do something with that doubt. I can’t let it just stay there, unchecked, allowed to be my new buddy. I have to bring it into the light, remind myself what’s true, do the work to find answers, and move forward in that truth—whether that’s about my writing or what backstory my protagonist needs that explains how he knows an important language.
Then I’ve got to get back to the hard work—and keep going, even when I’m doubtful or afraid.