July Mantra: The word 'amateur' comes from the latin 'to love'.

Words to live by

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July has boiled into my writing room in a hot sticky mess, reflecting the inside of my brain. I’m working to a semi-self imposed deadline to get the new book up to 30,000 words for my agent to have a look at. But as every book is, in the initial stages, the new book is an unwieldy beast, a complex, complicated story with lots and lots of small rabbit holes, from which I must choose the correct ones to make the story work, to make it progress, to make the characters breathe, feel, exist. It is both thrilling and terrifying.

Writing a book is like trying to electrocute a creature to life, and the creature is a Frankenstein style monster and you must get all the limbs and organs and soft connective tissues absolutely right before it can live. Initially, of course, you must just get it on the table, get the limbs lined up, read the anatomy books to make sure you know what goes where, and even on the bits you don’t fully understand; the soft grey pulp of the book’s brain, the electrical impulses that flicker over nerve endings, you must push forward, you must have a go based on your own skill and knowledge. That is the terrifying bit, trusting that you know enough about your craft to be able to do it, and do it again.

I have an intense case of imposter syndrome

A list of ten fears that are on my back right now:

1. the fear of writing a shite book

2. the fear of what people will say about me if it is shite

3. the fear that all the work (already about ten months working and researching the current book, and it will end up being about three-four years start to finish) will be for nothing

4. the fear that I am not good enough to do this, and up to this point all success has been because people feel sorry for me

5. the fear that I will never get to where I want to be

6. the fear that I am a one trick pony

7. the fear that all the other writers know how to be a writer and I don’t

8. (this is a specific on) the fear that the thing I have been awarded, which I can’t announce yet, has been awarded to me by accident/mistake.

9. the fear that I am accidentally going to step on the toes of someone more established/knowledgable than me

10. the fear that I won’t finish it. The fear that I won’t even get to the first self-imposed deadline.

I read recently an author needs to have seven books published in order to make a living just as a writer. I don’t know how well those facts stand up. It was an insta reel I saw while procrastination-doom-scrolling through my own personal anxiety, tapping into a more generalised world-on-fire anxiety. Right now seven books (and I’m assuming poetry is not counted in this scenario) seems an impossible feat.

All this anxiety is sucking the joy from my writer life. How to pull myself back from worrying so much about the thing that I want to enjoy?

I return to the little book, and a new mantra to see me through July, to the self imposed deadline date, and beyond.

The word for amateur comes from the latin ‘amare’ meaning ‘to love’.

I don’t know where this quote came from. A strange quote for someone who wants to make a living as a writer. But what I want to do is uncouple myself from the awful ‘second album’ feeling of trying to make this new writing project perfect, and return to the unrestrained joy of following my brain down its burrows of interest. I think that’s what you have to do, as a writer. You have to be the professional, whilst holding onto the amateur, the love of the thing. In order to reach a point where I earn enough to not be worrying all the time about income, (is there such a place?) I need to be able to write well, and to be able to write well, I have to allow myself the time and energy to be free and joyful and in love with my project, without worrying whether it’s going to be published or not.

The word amateur comes from the latin ‘to love’. To love a thing and be unbothered whether you can make money from it. To do a thing, a creative thing just to feel the joy of that creation.

This is what I want to achieve this month, the joy, the love of the thing driving the project forward.

Let’s start with giving myself a little pep talk. How would you answer my list of fears? Here are my answers.

1. Listen to the other voice, you know the one. The one that gets you to your desk every day. The one that wants you to grow. The one who knows how to do this. Let this nay sayer voice go. She’s getting in our way.

2. People are already talking about you. There will be people already mocking you, behind your back. People are people, some of them are c***s. But you know what, are they showing up? Are they taking risks? Are they making themselves vulnerable to pursue their own dreams and desires, or are they afraid to do that? More importantly, would you take careers advice from them? No? Then why are you listening to the imaginary negative conversations about your career?

3. Creativity is never for nothing. The purpose of the creative act is that magical thing that takes a series of neutrons reacting to each other on a chemical level and makes it into something that can be printed out and read by other people. It’s worth is not in its sales value.

4. I mean, it might be true, and you would never actually know. But it isn’t true. You know it’s not true. Stop wallowing.

5. You will or you won’t. But no one will ever say you didn’t give it your all. And even if you get half way to where you want to be, you will be doing the thing you love, so win win. Worrying isn’t going to change the outcome.

6. You wouldn’t be writing this if you were. And besides, there is nothing wrong with working within the themes you know well.

7. Help me out here writers, do you feel like you know what you are doing?

8. You are going to have to believe me when I say it is much more likely that the three months you put into building your application and making it good is more likely the reason you got it.

9. This is a strange one, isn’t it. It says more about you feeling like you don’t fit in than it does about actually fearing upsetting someone higher up the ladder than you. Take your place at the table, girl. Your voice deserves to be heard here. And besides, what would that actually look like? It would look like insecurity on their part.

10. When I was writing The ghost Lake, I got stuck. For months. I messaged my agent in a panic begging for an extension because I was so completely blocked I wasn’t going to make the deadline. But I did make the deadline. I just had to say the fear out loud to get past it.

I’m saying the fear aloud to get past it, and I am embracing the idea of loving something so much you don’t care if it is a success or not.

Hope you can do the same.

Until next time

x