The Self-Doubt Demon

I sat in my favourite chair.  The room was quiet.  A glass of red was only an arm's length away.  My notebook computer lay open on my lap.  My word processor of choice was open in full-screen mode.  The word count was in the top left-hand corner of the screen.  2,476 words.  The clock read 7pm. 

Time passed.  The clock read 7:30pm.  2,489 words.  Thirteen measly words.  Must have been the wine.

It wasn't the wine - even if it did suck.

The above scenario has been my writing life for the past week.  I was wondering when it would happen.  Since I started 52 Short Stories, apart from a few momentary lapses, I've been producing fairly regularly and easily.  It was obviously too good to be true.  This week, I was finally visited by every writer's favourite guest, writer's block.

I'm not a big believer in writer's block.  I think that more often than not, it's an excuse and a procrastination tool used by the writing bunch.  I know I've used it before.  So, imagine my surprise when I found myself afflicted by it.

Like any good skeptic, I didn't accept the block at face value, and instead decided to dig a little deeper to see what was behind it.  After some soul searching - and a few more glasses of wine - I found the underlying cause.  Self-doubt.

I'm convinced that self-doubt is a defining human characteristic.  I can't picture a lioness thinking to herself, "What if I'm just not a good enough hunter to take down this wildebeest?"  Also, I don't believe for a second that there is a single person on this planet who has never doubted himself.  Even the most arrogant and cocky man has moments of self-doubt.  I should know, I've been called both.

For any creative, though, self-doubt is crippling.  When your livelihood, and your identity, depends on your being good at something, and you don't think you are, you start to question your entire raison d'etre.  When you start thinking you're not good enough, there are a lot of problems that can arise.  At worst, you give up altogether and pack it in.  But even before that stage, self-doubt can cripple a person by making him over-think everything.  You stop trusting your instincts, and you think of a million other ways to do a thing that may or may not be better than your way.  The end result is paralysis - and the manifestation of that for a writer is writer's block.

So, how do you beat it?  Here's what has worked for me

The first step is to recognize it for what it is.  There can be many other reasons for writer's block (or painter's block, or photographer's block, or whatever your domain of choice may be), so it's important to diagnose the source. 

Once you've figured out that you're suffering from self-doubt, and it shouldn't be that hard, because chances are you'll despise everything you've ever done, the next thing to do is figure out what caused it.  Some people suffer from chronic self-doubt.  Brilliant writers think they're hacks.  Genius painters reconsider taking over the family construction business.  If that's the root, then my best advice is to find someone else who suffers the same affliction and ask them for advice.  Everyone lives with some self-doubt sometimes, but living with it always takes a special skill, which I don't have.  If you suffer from acute self-doubt, then chances are there was something that caused it. 

The causes of self-doubt can vary wildly.  It can range from getting harsh criticism to seeing someone in your field who surpasses your skill.  I know there have been times where I've read my favourite authors and thought to myself, "Damn, I'll never be anywhere near this good."

Once you've distilled the cause, you are well on your way to recovery, because now the problem is not some huge amorphous dilemma.  Instead, it's a specific set of circumstances that yielded a specific reaction.  The exact remedy will vary depending on the ailment, but here are a few lines that might help.

1.  Yes, there are people out there who are better than you.  Get over it, there will always be someone better.  That's why you work hard, to become better than them. 

2.  You're not as bad as you think are.  It's true, most artists and creative types are extremely critical of themselves, especially the good ones.  Ultimately, that's what makes them good: the fact that they hold themselves to a higher standard than others do.

3.  Most of what you produce will be garbage.  I'm a big believer in this one.  You need to mine a whole lot of coals to find a diamond.  The trick is to persevere until you find that diamond.  Alternatively, work those coals until they become diamonds.  In the writing world, that's what we call editing.  Editing is where great writing happens.

4.  One man's junk is another man's treasure.  Although I think this cliche is the reason behind the despicable practice of yard sales, I think it applies here, too.  There will always be someone out there, who will think something is good.  If Dan Brown can have the best selling novel of all time, then there might be even more of those people out there than I think.

5. Remember why you do what you do in the first place.  If you're like most artists, you do what you do because you love it.  I write because I love writing.  If I were looking to make money, I would have kept practicing law.  If I wanted to do what I was good at, I would have become an engineer.

If you have your own ways of dealing with creative self-doubt, drop a line in the comments. 

Photo courtesy of Syma Sees.