The Imposter

Sometimes we write a story, and as it comes time to share it with other people, an uncomfortable thought begins creeping around our mind. If we aren’t conscious of it, that thought will stick around long after we’ve published our work and are busy writing the next story. It’s a fear that can’t usually be mollified with accomplishment. In fact, sometimes a modest level of success only makes it worse. That thought? You’re a fraud, an imposter, and soon everyone will learn the truth.

The Imposter Syndrome, as it’s often called, is prevalent throughout the arts. I’ve heard actors and comedians and musicians all describe it. It’s a consequence, I think, of artists being fans of their chosen discipline first. That is, writers first love to read. In fact, an author I recently interviewed, when I asked her about being bit by the writing bug, described her weekly trips to the library with her mother when she was a girl. That’s when she fell in love with books. She had yet to pen a single story.

Stories and songs and paintings provide a very unique function in our lives. Unlike pot roasts and computers and umbrellas, they have no practical function whatsoever. They don’t keep us warm or dry, they don’t feed us or fix anything or get us from here to there. All they do is entertain us, amuse us, inspire and terrify us. The stories we write are aimed, to the best of our ability, directly at our readers’ hearts, concerned as they are only with how they feel. We care not about their body but only their soul. When reached, it’s a kind of holy connection. As a reader, it’s only natural to place the author, the one who initiated this experience, into a very special category of person.

And so, perhaps we feel like imposters because we know what we are. We have a body, and we think about it more than we’d like, and we feel anything but holy most days, tromping around, griping, wanting, wishing, sometimes getting and then thinking, “So what?” We’re no saint, and how embarrassing, how shameful, when the world learns we’ve been posing as one. Except it’s your own heart, your own soul, from which your stories come, not your loins or lungs or even brain. We all have a saint within us, and when we listen to him or her, we feel more like ourselves than when we look in the mirror.

Check out Fearless Writing with Bill Kenower on YouTube or your favorite podcast app.

Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt
You can find William at: williamkenower.com