I’m looking at titles of posts “the perfect man”.

I’m looking at Shelli’s post about there always being someone better, smarter, prettier, and with less baggage. (And thinking ‘get out of my head, lady!’)

And, I’m also editing.

Add. Shake. Post.

There’s a lot of pressure in this business to be perfect. Or at least as close as you can get. Dot every i, cross every t. And make damn sure you have your commas in the right place. Everyone’s heard the horror story about manuscripts tossed across the room for the wrong font, font-colour, font-size. Whatever.
We have spell-check, grammar-check, critique partners, beta-readers, editors and copy-editors.
What most of us don’t have is a healthy sense of confidence. I can count on my hand the number of times I’ve heard an author send something out to a crit group or beta reader saying “This book is incredible. Terrific. I’m sure you’ll find very little wrong.”

Usually the notes look more like this: “There are scenes missing, and I’ve left notes like ‘add more later’. If you can figure out what I can add, that’d be great. I had to rewrite chapter three, because I wrote it first in present tense, and then had to change it. Make sure I caught them all, please? Oh, yeah, and I’m still not sold on the ending. Frankly, I hate them all so much at this point I debated letting them stay stuck in that burning building to die slow, painful deaths.”

If you ask a writer “How good are you?” you will likely get the following response, in some form or another:

“Well, I’m not bad. I’m pretty good at *insert one of:
characters
plot
pace
emotion
conflict
dialogue*

but, my (insert a different word from the above list) could use some strengthening.

Reviews come in. No one seems to notice the very large section that reads “I loved this book and am recommending to everyone I meet: BUY IT!” They find the part where it says “‘himself’ was misspelled on page 303.” And that translates to: they think the book was poorly edited, and they hated it.

The really tough part of this is that there are authors whose work makes my jaw drop, my stomach churn, and my head feel light. They’re THAT good. And yet, they still feel like they’re ‘okay.’
And there’s no way to win. Because those few authors who are proud and confident…well, we hate them. Or we assume they’re posing.

It’s like this every step of the way, too. “I’m epublished, but I want to hit NY.” I have this theory there are NY-authors, multipublished, best sellers–and they dig into their Ben and Jerry’s when they’re halfway through a manuscript doing the “I suck” chorus.

If it’s wrong, don’t disillusion me, please.

Instead of questions, today I have ‘homework’. Even if you don’t comment, but I hope you will: think of two things you’re GREAT at in your writing. Focus on them, and nothing else, for a full minute. And keep it in mind later. If you do post your two great things, and one of them happens to be ’selling millions of copies’, please expect email from us later.

6 Responses to “Perfection and Self Confidence”

1. Nonny Says:
   January 12th, 2007 at 6:39 pm

   The self-confidence factor has two sides for me.

   One one hand, logically, I know I’m good. Perfect? Hell no; I’d be an idiot to think that. (Or a raving egomaniac.)

   Emotionally? Bah. I’m constantly afraid I suck. I’m still not sure where this came from, for sure, because I didn’t have this problem when I did suck. *mutter*

   As for whether or not bestselling authors deal with this, well, go see John Scalzi’s post over at the Whatever: http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/004762.html

2. Shelli Stevens Says:
   January 12th, 2007 at 6:46 pm

   I’m good at dialogue and humor. Maybe sex. I could use some work on descriptions and internals.

   I think even the people who’ve ‘made it’ get that feeling some times.

   good post!

3. Jen Says:
   January 12th, 2007 at 8:47 pm

   I told you I’m good at persistence. That’s what I think I do well. I think I’m good at character development. I like to give my characters REASONS why they do something.
   I know that I’m not rational about my work. There are days I just have to suck it up and deal with a case of ISuckitis. It’s like the flu. It comes and then it goes.

4. Loribelle Hunt Says:
   January 12th, 2007 at 11:04 pm

   I’m good at dialogue and I write a tight story. Which basically means I suck at description lol. *g* I think I’m a good writer most of the time, but Isuckitis could strike at any time. Like Jen said, it does come and go.

   Then there’s the whole epub thing. I call it imposter syndrome lol. I’m epubbed. Am I real writer or only pretending?

   I’ve seen a lot of NY published authors say the same thing. I doubt it ever really goes away.

5. Sara Dennis Says:
   January 13th, 2007 at 4:55 pm

   My old writing partner is NY pubbed. She suffers isuckitis just like us epubbers do. A lot.

   And I just posted my link to Jim Butcher’s blog the other day, where he posts lots of bad reviews and makes a notation at the bottom that sometimes it’s hard to stay motivated. He suffers isuckitis too.

   I don’t know if Nora Roberts or Susan Elizabeth Phillips or Jenny Crusie have this disease, but I’d be willing to bet so.

   And I’m certainly infected. All we can do is our best, neh?

6. Crystal Jordan Says:
   January 17th, 2007 at 4:34 pm

   I suffer from isuckitis all the time, every day. It’s a chronic disease.

   Things I’m good at: dialogue and portraying emotion in my writing. At least, that’s what I’ve been told. ;-P