imposter syndrome

Be a fraud

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I am reasonably sure that there hasn’t been a single day in my adult life when I haven’t written. Maybe it’s just a sketchy idea, maybe it’s this right here, writing to you, but it will have been something. Something where I thought by writing, by typing.

Also, frankly, by shrugging. I don’t have “Write Something” on my To Do list. If I didn’t do it, I’d now be a bit surprised, but hardly concerned. There isn’t a rule that writers have to write every day and I don’t imagine you’d think there was, except enough people do that it’s a little issue.

It came up at the National Writers’ Conference earlier this month, for instance. Don’t let me make it sound like the whole conference stopped to gasp, it was just one small moment in a large day — but consequently, it’s also come up in conversations since.

The idea that writers should write every day is the kind of thing that anyone who isn’t a writer would barely register being said. And if they did hear it, did register it and even if they did happen to believe it with a passion, it doesn’t affect them.

Yet there are enough writers who are troubled enough by this idea that it comes up in conferences. I think I’m already making too big a deal of it, so let me just offer that any kind of idea that makes writers feel guilty is bollocks.

All that matters is what lands on the page or the screen, and I don’t see that worrying about not having written yesterday is in any way a help to you writing today. It’s easily the opposite: if you build up this idea that you’re a fraud for not writing every day, I suspect it becomes harder to write any day.

Do whatever you need to get to the finishing line and if that is writing every day, fine. If it’s writing just when you can, well, I’m going to look you in the eye and suggest there’s probably a bit more you can do, but I won’t do that very firmly.

Because if your failing to write every day means you’re a fraud, then be a fraud. Be very a fraud. All that matters is what ends up on the page and the screen, whatever it takes, however long it takes, whether it’s a daily effort or not.

I happen to find it easy and normal and ordinary to write every day, and that’s nice for me. The real worry is whether you or I write anything that’s actually remotely good, and here I need to stop looking you in the eye.

Imposter sin

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I promise you this is about writing, but it won’t seem it for a while. Here’s the thing: Britain is the first country in the world to have a coronavirus vaccine. The vaccine is great news that’s come a lot sooner than could’ve been hoped, and it’s like the first light after a worldwide pandemic.

Worldwide. I can’t think of anything that’s hit the entire world and put us all on pause like this. So the world has been hit, but a pan-European effort involving a US company has got the first vaccine.

There cannot be even a scintilla of this that is in any way bad.

So the British government invented one. This week Jacob Rees-Mogg, leader of the House of Commons, took this unequivocally good news and lied about it.

The vaccine is a win, it is a brilliant achievement, and he lied.

This isn’t a matter of opinion, it is not a difference in interpretation. He says –– and continues to say –– that Britain developed the vaccine because of Brexit. If we hadn’t left Europe, we’d have been held up by pesky red tape.

He might call it red tape, I might call it safety standards that mean fewer of us die, but, you know, that bit is splitting hairs.

What isn’t is that in this case Britain is still bound by exactly the rules and standards it was. Not for much longer, we’ve got that chlorinated chicken coming, but right now, this moment, we are. The vaccine was developed under these European rules, it was developed by people across Europe, it is a great thing.

And yet I’m embarrassed by it. Because of how Rees-Mogg told the story.

When I say this vaccine was developed across Europe, I do include Britain. My own country played a part here and that’s something to be proud of, but instead Britain is diminished by its own choice.

And there’s the writing part of this.

You have a story, the creation of the vaccine, but it’s your choice of how you tell it that decides whether you make people proud or embarrassed. It is literally writing this time, as Rees-Mogg tweeted that bullshit, but the fashioning of the story, the telling of it, that’s writing whether it goes into text or not.

It used to be that you knew politicians lied, but at least they made some effort and at least they knew it was bad. I mean, Richard Nixon resigned. Nobody does now. Nobody resigns because of something they’ve done, nobody gets fired, or at least not in politics.

There is something worse than lying these days. There used to be a disconnect between what politicians said and what they do, now there is a chasm between what they do and the truth.

The nearest similar chasm I can think of is going to sound trivial because it doesn’t end up killing lots of people. It severely damages one person, though. And it’s the imposter syndrome chasm. I know this as being something writers feel, that they’re not really writers and will be caught out soon, but actually I suspect it applies to everyone. Except current politicians, obviously.

I’ve been talking about imposter syndrome with a friend this week and somehow all the old jokes didn’t seem right. The key old joke is that actually I have solved imposter syndrome: I no longer suspect I’m a rubbish writer, I looked into it and proved that yes, I’m crap. All doubt removed.

This time I keep thinking of that chasm between our perception of ourselves as writers, and whatever the reality is. I keep thinking that there is no truth any more, you can and maybe must just choose what you want to believe. Make a choice to believe you’re good, regardless of the facts, and then at least you can remove the constant, time-consuming doubt and get on with actually writing something.

So.

I hereby declare these three things to be true and self-evident. I am a brilliant writer, I am roguishly handsome and I invented chocolate.