True confessions: I’m 95% through a project I’ve been working on for two years, and I find myself suddenly wracked with self-doubt. All the negative thoughts that we’re all so familiar with are surfacing. Have I screwed the pooch? Have I lost my mojo? Do I really have anything worth saying?
I know the tune. The question is: What do I do about it?
I want to share my internal process, because we all go through these dark hours. Here’s how I’m handling the current raft of B.S. inside my head.
Hello, Resistance!
First, I recognize these thoughts as Resistance. True, they may contain legitimate elements. But that’s for other people to judge, not me. My role as writer/artist/entrepreneur is to keep going at full capacity, no matter what.
Second, I recognize that the appearance of self-doubt is totally predictable at this stage of the process–i.e., when the finish line is in sight. I was just reading a book last night about “story points” in screenplays. One of the formula moments that the writer was talking about was the “All Is Lost” beat. This comes somewhere around the start of Act Three. The protagonist endures a dark night of the soul, a “Father, why hast Thou forsaken me?” moment. This, I recognize, holds true for any mortal endeavor, whether it’s climbing Mt. Everest, having a baby, or opening your own hot dog stand across the street from Pink’s. That moment is going to come. It’s inevitable.
Third, I recognize the difference between thoughts and “thoughts.” Real thoughts are stuff we actually think. Resistance produces “thoughts.” These are fake. We ourselves are not thinking them; they are coming from our darkest abodes of self-sabotage.
I will dismiss those “thoughts.” How? By doing it. By refusing to grant them credence. I will banish them. I will blow them off.
Yeah, Steve, but what about reality?
All that having been said, self-doubt can be legitimate. It’s plain crazy to dismiss everything. This is when the discriminatory intelligence comes in. This is the tough part.
What do I do? I must reassess what I’ve written with the coldest, most objective eye I can bring to it. Go through this sucker. Is it working? If not, what’s wrong? Is something missing? Do I have the caboose where the locomotive should be?
One thing I won’t do now: I won’t look for feedback from friends. That will only confuse me. What counts is what I myself think. Let me reevaluate this material as best I can, till I can’t take it any more. Then I’ll ask for fresh eyes.
What if it sucks?
What if my self-doubt is justified? What if the book really does stink? What if I’ve just put in two killer years for nothing?
Then I’ll take the long view. I’m not in this for the weekend. This is a lifetime calling.
I’ll take my lumps and learn my lessons. I’ll look to the next book and the one after that. Even Bob Dylan puts out a crappy album once in a while. Derek Jeter himself sometimes goes down swinging. I will too if I have to. But nothing will stop me from giving this book my all. It is my baby, just like the other kids in the family. I’ll get it into Harvard if I can; I’ll bail it out of jail; I’ll pick it up at three AM at the Greyhound bus station. I will take a bullet for it.
Fuck self-doubt. I despise it. I hold it in contempt, along with the hell-spawned ooze-pit of Resistance from which it crawled.
I will NEVER back off. I will NEVER give the work anything less than 100%.
If I go down in flames, so be it. I’ll be back.
28 Comments
Geez, I guess that feeling doesn’t go away, even after you’ve done a shelf-full of solid work.
I wonder how it would feel to actually LIKE what you’re producing. To go gaily along enjoying the tale that’s spinning out from the keyboard. Might be good for productivity. Not so sure about quality. At least all the time. But it’s probably less taxing than wondering if you’re merely spending your days extruding an endess turd.
From hearing Stephen King in “On Writing”, I get the feeling he loves sitting down to work each day, and fairly likes what he’s turned out most of the time. Not to say he doesn’t work hard, but it sounds like he has fun doing it. It’s not a daily root canal.
Hmm.
You better finish that last 5% so I can read another Pressfield masterpiece!
Without resistance there is no conflict.
Without conflict there is no evolution.
Without evolution there is no life.
Without life, the infinite is hollow.
– Bob Newhart’s Left Nut
It’s Tues. 8 Dec. and I’m reading The War of Art for the first time; page 75. Made me want to look at your website and there you are mired in the muck. (It’s almost a week later, and you may be de-mucked at this time but……..THANK YOU. Making the Truth of Resistance so real and opening your personal world to us is a boon. Your rousing challenge to Resistance is tonic to my soul. I’m rooting for you and looking forward to reading your fiction, although this non-fiction is damned transporting and I plan on re-reading it more than once.
Judianna
I have thoroughly enjoyed every one of your books. I love the images you create, not all of them are pleasant, but it feels like I am exploring a new world.
I greatly appreciate that you have doubts and were willing to share them. It makes me feel better when I stare at a blank page, or worse when I’m staring at my words and I don’t like them.
As a side note I actually found your site searching for “One Tribe at a Time”. I am excited that your helping get this information out there and that I found two things I’m thrilled with by searching for one.
For the most part, I’m wracked with self-doubt, so it’s good to know that even established writers go through the same process. And I agree that sometimes there is something behind the self-doubt, so it’s good to try to look at one’s work objectively. There are days when I’m happy with my writing, but there are other days when I don’t know why I bother and want to give up.
Without writing, I wouldn’t be me, so I’ll keep reaching for that coveted contract.
I read this on a day that I could feel the flames all around me and feel the ground rushing up at me and needed the reminder that sometimes Resistance loves those nightmares during the day. Thanks for the reminder(s!) Steve.
Arrghhh. Fucking resistence. I know the taste of this, right now it is taking every ample opportunity to point out why the endeavor upon I’m about to embark is way over my head, and I have nothing like the chops it will take to accomplish it.
I know the truth is that the endeavor is about developing those chops, and at the moment all that is required are the balls to START, and then be willing to endure all those sticking points that will show up to help me make the work authentic and real.
Yeah, I will learn a thing or two. That is the whole idea!