I can’t believe it’s been a year since I posted here… only… well, no, that’s not really true. I’m not surprised, actually. In the last year, other than being busy with the usual things like family, work, and all of the standard daily-life stuff that always gets in the way of creativity, I’ve been facing a crisis of confidence.
I’ve been reluctant to talk about it. Who wants to admit defeat? Who wants to express wavering self-confidence, especially in an industry that values self-promotion, perseverance and flawless self-certainty above nearly everything else? I’ve almost written this post so many times, but held myself back. Am I dooming myself by admitting I’ve felt discouraged? Am I closing future doors by confessing to periods of low self-esteem? Perhaps.
But I don’t think I’m exactly alone. Creative work is an irrational manic roller coaster of I-will-conquer-the-world! enthusiasm and why-did-I-ever-think-I-could-do-this? doubts. You spend so much time and energy alone in your head, with only your characters and ideas for company. You’re hard on yourself, doubting and revising and improving and doubting again, until you finally whittle down the doubts enough that you can see past them. You psych yourself up, actually get excited because you’ve finally created something that you really genuinely like — and maybe someone else will like it, too. In a delirious rush you go for it. You hit Send. You let someone look over your shoulder at the screen. You hand the pages to test readers. Your creation is officially out of your head and into the world, even if only one other person sees it, because creative work only exists in the binary states of Your Head or The Whole World.
And that’s where it gets scary, because now someone else is looking at your baby, this weird and flawed beast that, unlike a real baby, you can’t even blame on previous generations’ bad genes. You can only blame the content of your own head and the abilities of your own hands. Now it’s out there and it’s too late to take it back and now you’re being judged — not just your creation, but your whole self being judged — on what you’ve willed into form.
Oh hell.
You wait. Holding your breath. Twitchy with adrenaline. And sometimes you get what you need: Approval, acceptance, the relief that you did actually make something worthwhile. Sometimes you get disappointing-but-useful constructive criticism, which might sting, but shows that someone cared enough to try to help, that they saw enough potential to be worth improving.
And sometimes… oh, this one’s the killer. Sometimes you get “Nice” or “Yeah, it’s pretty good,” and a quick change of subject. Ouch. So it’s not nice, not good, it’s unfixable or uninteresting or just so terribly, terribly useless that we can’t even talk about it. Let’s move on.
Only you can’t, of course, especially when the damning indifference comes from someone who cares about you or someone who’s usually supportive or someone who’s more experienced and knowledgeable than you are. Then you really can’t move on, because the only movement you can imagine is crawling into a cave, possibly carrying everything you’ve ever created to burn for warmth while you hibernate away from everyone you’ve just humiliated yourself in front of… which obviously is now The Whole World.
And of course it’s unfair — it’s unfair to that kind, supportive person who usually has time for constructive critique/ego-stroking, who may have just been busy or having a bad day or needed some time to get their thoughts together. It’s unfair to that critique partner or teacher or agent who is, in reality, considering a piece of creative work and not actually judging your value as a human being. None of those people are actually The Whole World and they never claimed to be. It’s unfair to hang the full weight of your creative self-worth on someone else.
But it’s also impossible to stop yourself feeling that blow that knocks your legs right out from under you.
So (obviously) I had one of those experiences last year. A small series of them: A curt reaction to a half-finished story that I thought was going well, a form-letter rejection of a picture book I actually believed was pretty good, and a short-but-not-sweet no-constructive-criticism judgment (of the same book) from the teachers of a class that I’d previously thought I was doing well in. Strike three. I was humiliated. I felt like I’d probably been embarrassing myself all along, every time I’d ever shared anything that I’d created. The Whole World knew it sucked, but I was only just figuring it out. Yikes.
The roller coaster careened downward. I tried to take a break from writing. It didn’t make me feel any better. In fact, it just depressed me more. Finally I resumed writing, only because I wanted needed to, just for myself, and not with any idea of ever showing it to anyone ever again. Ever. Ever ever ever.
I wrote more. I felt better. I feel better. The train is click-click-clicking back up the hill.
I hope to post more soon. I will post more soon.
michelle heimburger 