224: Impostor Syndrome When Editing Your Book

 

Impostor syndrome is very common when writing the first draft of your novel, but it can also strike when you're editing your draft. This episode shares some reframes of the editing process and how to work through the self-doubt and impostor syndrome you feel.

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Impostor Syndrome When Editing Your Book

 

 Hi friend, welcome back to Your Big Creative Life podcast. I appreciate you listening. I appreciate you being here. Sometimes I have to pinch myself, like I'll type out when I'm looking at the podcast numbers, I'll type out a number like 223 or 224. And I'm like, holy **** have we really been doing the podcast that long? That's insane. So anyways, yeah, whether you are an OG listener or someone new, I just appreciate you being here. This podcast is for y'all. So I'm glad that you're listening and I hope it's been valuable. And yeah, I'm just, I enjoy doing it every week, honestly. This week's episode is inspired by a question that I got from a former coaching client, an editing client. She's working on her second book right now. It's fantasy. And she's having a lot of imposter syndrome and like self-doubt in the editing part of the process. And I'm going to read out what she wrote to me. And she had said, this might be a good question for the Q&A episode that we do. We do a Q&A episode the last Tuesday of every month. But honestly, there's a lot here. And I think it's I think it's a big enough topic and something that a lot of people struggle with that it would be good for us to have a whole episode to really dive into it. So that's what we're going to do today. Okay.

So here's your here's her question. I've been having what I call a confidence issue in tackling that. It's to my book. In my heart, I have these strong themes and compelling characters, thoughtful plot points and meaningful arcs I want to see through. The ideas matter to me and I think I could resonate with others if I'm able to translate all that to the page. But when I sit down to craft the scene, I have this horrible feeling of imposter syndrome, the sense that maybe this story would be better told by someone else or like I'm not the person who's supposed to tell this story. I'd love to hear any practical day-to-day tips you have to manage the unique paralysis caused by imposter syndrome as I know I won't be able to root it out all out overnight, but I'm tired of it getting in the way of me even trying to become a better writer. I'm great at accepting the ****** first draft mentality because the first draft is allowed, should put that in quotes, allowed to be that way. Now that I have a draft complete, making it better is so intimidating.

Okay, so this is a good This is a good topic because it really does feel like a lot of the advice that we hear around imposter syndrome and self-doubt is focused on the first draft, where it's like people just want the first draft to be perfect. And so there's a lot of self-doubt, a lot of like, especially if you're a new writer and you're working on your very first book, you're going to be meeting that inner critic for the first time, the voice, the part of you that tells you, oh, this is terrible. No one's going to want to read this. Why bother? Comparing it to so-and-so author, all that stuff, but it really is often focused on the first draft, and so the advice is, Well, let the draft be ****** embrace the ****** first draft. Like, no one's gonna see that first draft. It doesn't matter if it's terrible, but then... Like this person says, what happens when you get to editing? Because it's one thing to feel that way about the draft. Like, okay, but now the draft is done and you're going back to editing and that can bring up its own set of unique challenges. The inner critic can rear its ugly head in a slightly different way.

So this is very normal, I just want to say. And that's something that I told this person is like, this is common. Partly because once you have a draft done, And if you've let it be messy, if you let it be rough, it can often feel like this is where the real work begins because you have to shape what you've already created. And additionally, you are one step closer, even if it's a small step and you still have a ways to go, it is one step closer to the book being done, published, ready to query, whatever's next for your book. Maybe you're even one step closer to letting someone else read it. which can feel overwhelming. So that can cause a lot of this stuff to flare up as well. So it's very normal to feel this way. And I gave this person a few suggestions and like reframes that we're going to talk through here because I think this is common. So #1, treat the. the initial round of editing like a ****** first draft. The power of the ****** first draft is that, again, no one's going to see it. doesn't matter if it's chaotic or if it's messy or if it's kind of wandering, you're still figuring out the story. Treat the initial round of editing as if it's that, because no one's going to see. this draft. Like you are still just alone with this novel shaping it. And of course, then you could just say like, you're prolonging the perfectionism and the voice of your inner critic that's coming out.

But like, oh, I'll worry about that later. And then eventually you're going to have to worry about it because you will get to the final round of editing. But just try to push that off as much as possible. I want to give a special kind of like shout out or special permission, reassurance, I don't know what, something, to the people who are more or pantsers. I just did this in an early episode. I got the backwards. Okay, pantsers, meaning you're just kind of writing to see where the story goes. And maybe a lot of the first draft was you just figuring out what the hell you even want to write about. Like what this story even is, who your characters are, what the world building is, what your conflict is, et cetera. So if that's the case, it It really can feel like, oh crap, now I've got to edit and make all of this perfect. But it's just, it's just another form of a ****** first draft. It's the ****** second draft where you're just starting to get your hands dirty and shape things. So remember that there's no, you know, you're going to do multiple rounds of editing. And maybe I should back up a step and just talk about an approach to editing, because if you haven't gotten to this step yet, it might feel like you have to just fix everything in editing.

And yes, you do, but you don't have to do it all at once. And in fact, I think it's not necessarily a good use of your time and energy to do all of it in one round. You are going to do multiple rounds of editing. You probably should, in fact, do multiple rounds of editing. So you do not have to fix everything on one pass through the manuscript. I always think it's a good idea to start with the big picture stuff first, rewriting chapters, rewriting scenes, changing your ending, your beginning, moving things around. Maybe you had a scene where you're just like, I don't know what to write, bullet points of what happens, like fleshing all of that out. So do all of your big picture editing first before you go in and polish up your sentences. That should always be that line level, sentence level editing where you're looking at like word choice, grammar, et cetera. That should always be the very last step in editing. I do have an editing training that's like 30 or 40 bucks at the link in the show notes for this episode. It's a how to edit your draft training and it covers my 5 draft editing method and a lot of tips and tricks for that. So definitely check that out if you want like a training that has the strategy of how to edit your book. But yeah, so you're not, there's, don't feel pressure that your second draft has to be perfect because you're only going to do one round. No, you're going to do multiple rounds of editing.

So #2, a shift for you. This is a mindset one. Recognize that your brain is trying to protect you. I've talked before on the podcast about assigning a person person or an identity to this inner critic, like personifying a bit. Your inner critic might be a snarky teenager who just like rolls their eyes at you and is like, this is hot garbage. Like, what the hell? Ew, this is so cringy. Your inner critic might be, might take the form of a parent who was very critical on you when you were growing up. It might take the form of a teacher who's like scolding you for not being good enough. Just assign a person and identity to it because then it's easy to talk back and it's easy to recognize that this is just a separate part of your brain. You can talk back to it and be like, okay, thank you for sharing. I appreciate your concern, but like you can go sit down and be quiet right now. Because this What you're doing is brave, because it is scary to think about putting your work out into the world. And when you are editing your novel, that's what you're doing. You are preparing your book, you're improving your book, you're polishing your book so that it then could be read by other people. Unless you are one of those people who just wants to write for creative fulfillment and enjoyment, which is great, but in that case, maybe you don't have the same sort of imposter syndrome or self-doubt related to editing because no one will ever see the book, you know.

But for all of us who want to publish, whether it's self-publishing, submitting to a small press, querying to try to get an agent, whatever, people will read your book. And so that's just part of the process. And so it makes sense that there's this part of you that is scared of that and wants to protect you, wants to keep you where it's safe. And this is why I've had, I've known writers who have been stuck in editing loops where they just edit for like years. Because even if they consciously can't admit it, I think they're scared. I think they're scared. They want to make it perfect. They're scared of moving on to the next step. And so they just keep themselves stuck in this editing phase. Like, indefinitely because it feels safe and it's comfortable. Even if it is uncomfortable in the sense that you're like, oh, I'm just sick of editing. I'm sick of this book. Like it's hard. Yes, but it's also familiar. If you've been in that place, maybe there's a part of your brain that's like, oh, I recognize this. So it feels safe. So anyways, this is where radical self-compassion comes in because you're doing something that is objectively hard. Editing is hard. Preparing your book to be read by other people is hard. And so you can have radical self-compassion for that. small, like, this is so like therapy speak and like, I don't know, kind of cheesy. But think about your inner child who just wants reassurance that they're doing something scary and like it's hard.

But you have to reassure that part of yourself and give yourself that radical self-compassion to instead of beating yourself up or shaming yourself or feeling that way. And I say all of that, I give you that reframe, but it's also like you have to do it anyway, even if you're scared, even if you're overwhelmed. you're still going to sit down and do it. It's the same thing as the first draft. Even if you're like, I don't know if this is any good, I don't know what this book's going to be, I don't know if anyone's going to want to read this. Even if you have those thoughts, you can still move forward. It's like, yes, I hear you, I understand, inner critic, inner child, thank you, but I'm still going to keep going. It's the same thing with editing. You can still write if you're feeling scared, self-doubt, whatever.

Okay, the next thing to remember, Reframe tip, I don't know what it is. Editing is a skill, just like anything else related to writing. So the very first time that you are doing it, probably will feel daunting and overwhelming and like you're fumbling around and you don't really know what you're doing. So you're just getting the reps in here. It's exactly like writing the book. If you are at the point where you have a first draft done of a book and you're in editing, that means you've written an entire book. And I know that you learned things along the way. You learned things about the act of writing a book, but also your process, your routine, what works for you, what doesn't. You gathered all of this knowledge and data about your process and how to write a book through doing it. And it's the exact same thing with editing. It will get easier, easier in the sense that at least you know what to expect. You might have a book down the road that feels harder in terms of the actual steps of shaping the book and editing because maybe it needs a lot more work. But at least in that case, you know what to expect. You've been through it before. So this, in some ways, It just is the hardest to do it for your first book if you're like really getting in. Now this is, the person who asked this question, this is their second book, but it's really, they're really going in to do a lot of editing and shaping it. A lot of this is new, what they're doing.

So anyways. So yeah, it's a skill just like anything else related to writing, developing characters, writing dialogue, conflict, grammar, like it's all part of the process, it's all part of learning. The next thing that I want to mention that can kind of help combat imposter syndrome is to celebrate every little milestone and bit of progress. If you do the five draft editing method that I suggest, or maybe you just have like a list of things that you know you have to change, every time you make progress and cross one of those things off the list, you have to celebrate. Because what you're doing, yes, like gratitude and it shifts how you view it, if you could have like more of an attitude of like, oh, this is great that I'm doing it, let me celebrate my progress, but also you're giving your brain objective proof that you are doing the thing. Because imposter syndrome and self-doubt can be like, oh, I don't know how to do this. I'm the only one who doesn't have this figured out. Like everyone else like just automatically knows how to edit their book or everyone else writes A polished first draft and doesn't have to do this. Like I don't know how to do this. Well, once you start crossing things off the list, once you start editing, you're proving your brain wrong. You're proving that inner critic wrong that voices self-doubt because you are literally doing it. You are doing it.

So you will start to build up more and more proof that you can point to and say, no, that's not true. Like, I'm doing the thing. I'm doing it. Okay, the next like reframe is a bit woo-woo, but we're going to go there because I think it's really important. I want to touch on the part of her question that was like, who am I to tell this story? Am I the right person to tell this story? And I think people can sometimes ask that about very different cases. Like, I don't know. The answer might be no to that question if you are writing a book that is about an identity that is not your own and the book is the exploration of that thing. Like I'm thinking of, we've had a couple of guests a couple of guests on the podcast who have talked about like writing identities that are not your own, writing a marginalized identity of a group that you don't belong to. So like for me, example, I am a white woman. If I were, I'm not going to write a story that is about like a black woman coming to terms with her queerness and like coming out to the people around her. That's not I don't feel like that's a story I can accurately tell. I don't think that is a story I'm meant to tell. So the answer in that case would be no. But like for everything else, for every other case, you are the person to tell this story because the idea came to you.

Full stop. God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Source Energy, Mother Earth, Universe, whatever entity or being, even just like the creative gods, creative energy, bestowed you with this particular idea and these characters in this world because you are the person who is supposed to be telling it. Full stop. There's a reason that this came to you and it didn't come to me. I didn't get the book idea that this person is writing. I didn't get the thought or the spark or have a sense of the world or the magic or the characters or even just the basic premise. Neither did anyone else. She had this idea. So I fully believe that. Ideas come to us for a reason. And the fact that you have the idea means it's yours to explore. That's it. So you're automatically the best person to tell it. Okay, the final thing I want to leave you with when it comes to editing and feeling imposter syndrome or self-doubt is more of a strategy thing, what I've talked about in this episode of like just creating a list for yourself of tasks that you have to tackle. And you will start to see it really is just a matter of one thing at a time, crossing one thing off the list, one task. One edit at a time, one page at a time, one chapter at a time. That's really what editing is, just like writing the first draft. Because writing the first draft, it's a lot easier to see that. Like it is just one sentence at a time, a paragraph at a time, but a page at a time, but a chapter, a scene at a time, even if you're not dividing into chapters in the first draft, right?

That's what it is. And you slowly build up the words and all of a sudden, well, not all of a sudden, over time, over a long period of time maybe, you have a novel. All those sentences that you wrote build up to create a novel. It's the same thing with editing. All those changes that you're making eventually will lead to a polished draft of your book, like a polished book. So yeah, and I guess the last thing, one more thing, maybe it's just like a, I want to reiterate this idea of maybe a permission slip or acceptance around feeling this way. Some writers feel very overwhelmed by the first draft. It's daunting. It's like pulling teeth. And then they feel differently about editing. And some people, it's the opposite. So if you feel like editing just feels so overwhelming and daunting, it's okay to feel that way. It's normal to feel that way, especially if you plotted or pantsed a lot of the first draft, if you just wrote it really quickly, if you feel like it's messy. It's okay. It's okay to take your time. It's okay that editing is harder. It's a very different skill, like an approach than writing the first draft is. I also have a couple of, check out the editing training, like I mentioned, but then I also have a couple more editing podcasts that are related to like self-editing that you can check out if you want some more like strategies about how to approach this.

But yeah, you can do this because you wrote a book already. That is in so many ways, just a challenging thing and like an incredible accomplishment. So you can absolutely do this. It just isn't a matter of reframing it, talking back to that inner critic, giving yourself a ton of grace and compassion and doing it one step at a time. That's it. And really come back to that woohoo part. Like get mystical with it. There's a freaking reason that this idea came to you. There's a reason that you're drawn to tell this type of story. Not everyone is. And even if you're thinking like, oh, well, there are so many books about X, Y, Z, or like, there's so many fantasy novels out there. Yeah, but all of them are different in some way. So you will put your unique spin on it because it's your voice, your characters, your magic system, your lived experience that you were infusing into the book. Like all of that makes it yours. It puts your like unique stamp on it. So You've got this one thing at a time. And I'm cheering you on. I'm rooting for you. can do this. You will do this. Just give yourself tons of grace in the process. Thank you so much for listening. For more tips, advice, and motivation, check out at your big creative life on Instagram. Or you can follow me at Katie Wolfe writes on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. If you enjoyed this episode, the best way to show your support is to leave a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify to help other people discover the show. See you next week.

 

 

Katie Wolf