Self-doubt is a powerful thing. It's a powerful, horrible, and incredibly irritating thing.
I have a love/hate relationship with writing. It has been a dream of mine to be a novelist for more than half my life, dating back to my love affair with fantasy novels and video games. My early attempts were little more than derivative knockoffs of existing works or really bad adaptations of video game stories. Over the years, my writing and my vocabulary have improved and matured, but what has not followed suit are my self-confidence and my motivation.
I never finish anything. This stems from my innate ability to doubt myself, even under the best circumstances. I could show my work to dozens of people and receive unanimous praise, but I still wouldn't be satisfied. My self-doubt is so great, it's practically a superpower.
Very few people have ever been privy to my attempts at serious writing. In fact, I think the number currently sits at one. She's someone I respect greatly and whose opinion I value, both as a friend and an exceptional writer herself, yet when she tells me I have "mad writing skillz" and that my work is great, I brush off her compliments and assume she's placating me.
Last night I was going through some of my half-finished works and I realized something: I was actually pleased with a lot of it. As I re-read one particular story for the umpteenth time, it struck me that I was simply reading it. Not editing it, apart from a few spelling and grammatical errors I noticed, or fixing minor plotholes, and not changing it drastically. This is atypical when proofreading myself. Like George Lucas, I am never happy with my work and am constantly changing it, and it could be debated whether it's for better or worse.
While reading said story, a flood of ideas came to me and I found myself excited briefly, but there was one thing that kept nagging at me: It's not my idea.
The story in question is based on a concept from David Bowie.
In 1995, Bowie released an album titled Outside. Originally the first part of a planned trilogy, the album's initial critical and commercial failure ultimately led to the project apparently being abandoned (no mention of the follow ups, Contamination or Afrikaan, has been made since 2003, and Bowie has released several albums since).
The album's liner notes contained a short story, written by Bowie himself, detailing the phenomenon of Art-Crime, an underground craze where murder and mutilation have become a somewhat legitimate form of art. It was the lead character's job to determine what was categorized as legal and illegal.
Seeing potential for a great story, I took this concept and ran with it, began to flesh it out. My story deals with themes of xenophobia, censorship, loneliness and companionship, our primal urges, and the decline of society. The depravity of Art-Crime has been accepted by a section of the populace, while others have begun to view all art - music, film, books, sculpture, painting, even culinary arts, etc. - as destestable. It's a somewhat (OK, considerably) dark social commentary about where we could be headed wrapped up in a grim science fictiony story.
I do not write linearly. I usually start with the ending, or at least a rough outline of one, so I know where I want the story to go, but then I jump around and write random sections, eventually piecing them all together in order. As I was editing three sections together last night, surprisingly pleased with myself, I still found myself thinking, This will never get published.
My reasons for thinking this are numerous: 1. It's not my idea, and I have a feeling David Bowie isn't exactly easy to get ahold of; 2. It's good for me, but it's not good; 3. I'll never finish it as a direct result of items 1 and 2.
It's like a roundabout, in that it's an unending circle and it's stupid. If Stephanie Meyer can get that garbage called Twilight published, anything should be possible, right? But in the end, the story will most likely sit on my hard drive, doomed to the same fate as the other dozen or so that reside there and have for many, many years (in some cases, even being transferred from old computers to new ones). Why? Because I doubt myself, and nothing anybody says ever seems to change that.
You will never know if you never try. No action is the same as saying "no". Put self-doubt in a box and shove it in a locked closet. Do something courageous. Your writing is good enough.
Posted by: wockyjabber | October 03, 2011 at 08:18 AM