Writers suffer from Imposter Syndrome that's because we are in a sense imposters. When we are writing we have to become the characters to an extent. We live in their heads, feel their emotions, speak their words and then we are surprised we have a bit of an identity crisis. Being someone else or several someone else's is bound to impact on us. It's not always a bad thing - you can live out any life you choose without the consequences of the law breaking or affairs or substance abuse etc.
Writing is emotional and can leave you wrung out with little energy to focus on yourself and your life. There are parts of me in every character I write. It can be something little that no-one would recognise but I am in there somehow. If people in your life don't inhabit or understand that world that can be tough.
Writers have to live to have something to write about and mine that to bring the writing to life and make the characters real. Writers seem more likely to have anxiety, depression etc. so their feelings can come from dark places. Exhuming a difficult past several years later can resurrect issues along with the memories. If you feel you have failed in some aspect of your life and you are concentrating on that to feed your writing, using your writing as a kind of therapy that can reinforce your feelings.
The rejections that come along can add to that feeling of failure especially if it seems everyone else is succeeding and you are not. Not that we should compare ourselves to others and generally I don't.
I am an Imposter not because I have no faith in my writing but because I have to project a confidence in myself that I don't always feel in order to promote my work or no-one will read it and that defeats the purpose of writing it in the first place.
Copyright © 2021 Lily Lawson
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