Imposter Syndrome - Sarah Nicholson

 Whisper it quietly but I don’t really belong here!

I think everyone else on the Authors Electric blog team are proper published writers – me? – well I dabble a bit here and there but I’m NOT a proper Writer with a capital double U.

I have everything I need to be a writer

I’ve heard Joanne Harris, best-selling author of Chocolat and so many other wonderful novels, say “if you write, you are a writer.”

But there’s always more than a smidge of doubt that creeps in telling me this is not really my world, my place is on the outside looking in, reading rather than writing.

I may never write a best seller – some days I wonder if I’ll ever publish a full book! That does require actually writing it first and the longer I stick at it I realise just what a huge mountain I have to climb.

Can I really do this or am I an imposter?

My husband told me I didn’t know the “right sort of people” to be a writer.

A friend told me when I started a writing class, “the first novel you write will be rubbish!”

With such ringing endorsements in my ears it’s a wonder I am still putting words together at all, I should have passed my laptop to a chimpanzee years ago!

Recently I wrote something for the local free magazine about a church event and posted my by-line on Twitter to great acclaim.

My name in print - but not for the first time

I’ve done so much better than that, I say to myself as I start to think of other pieces that I have written.

There was a blog post once that was read by over 1000 in an hour http://re-ravelling.blogspot.com/2011/12/military-wives-choir.html

I once read out a poem I’d written on the main stage at a Christian event. http://re-ravelling.blogspot.com/2012/02/jesus-is-action-man.html

And if you look me up as an author on Amazon I am there, having contributed to a couple of flash fiction anthologies. (this took a bit of finding but here is the link) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sarah-Nicholson/e/B00H066VCI/ref=aufs_dp_mata_dsk

A story by me in a proper book - Tales by the Tree

Despite some success every now and then I've had times where I've given up writing, because it’s too hard, I get bored or despondent and the spark fizzles out. Just when I think I’m on the verge of breaking through and having my words reach more readers… nothing happens.

Perhaps it's not important how many people read my words because something pulls me back, time and time again, my fingers get twitchy and I know they should be tapping away on the keyboard where they feel at home. Synapses connected magically to fingertips, ideas fizzing and coming to life.

So maybe, despite all the doubts, I am NOT an imposter but a Real Writer (with CAPITAL LETTERS) after all!