Writers Hate Confident Writers.
An observation that I’ve witnessed for sometime now. One might chalk it up to perception. They might not be wrong, but perception follows patterns.
People who tend to perceive everything negatively have a pattern of being negative Nancy’s. On the contrary, people who tend to share their truth often inspire others to do the same and then comes the healing and growth. By the end of this read, you should have a pretty good idea of which type of person I am, although your perception will likely follow patterns of past judgement.
I’ve noticed that within the writing community, a lot of the backlash confident writers get comes from other writers. Especially those who view themselves as a writer on the same level as the confident writer who isn’t bashful when it comes to believing in themself.
Levels: Can’t Live with Them, Can’t Live without Them.
Growing up I liked levels. Mainly because they were present in all of the video games I played, but right now, I kind of dislike levels. We as humans place one another into specific categories (levels) for the sake of comparison.
When we see somebody on “our level” we tend to attach all types of limitations on them. Limits they haven’t placed on themselves, and even when that is so “we” tend to get upset with the person when they’ve decided to remove those self imposed limits and “we” get upset with them because they are on “our level.”
In the insecure writer’s defense, levels are indeed important. Despite relapses of vanity, categorizing things and people by levels is a natural way for humans to measure success. It shouldn’t be an absolute barometer of how successful or valuable a person is, but it does help if you use it as a tool for personal growth.
My problem lies when people start measuring others by their yard stick when the other person measures themself with a tape measurer that has an unlimited amount of tape.
To be clear, I’ve only seen this type of resentful behavior from beginner writers aimed at confident beginner writers and “unknown” writers aimed at others on their level of fame and fortune.
In Our Heads (A lot)
I get it. As a writer, I understand that we are our biggest critic. We tend to critique ourselves as individuals and as a writer. I can tell you as an “unknown” (not rich or famous) author, creative writer and screenplay writer, “levels” are not what sets writers a part. It’s how we view and navigate through self-imposed limits that sets successful writers a part from the rest.
Both famous writers and not have imposter syndrome. If you are a new writer or you’ve been doing this since 2010 like I have, talk to a famous writer or writers not on your “level” and ask them if they have moments of self-doubt. They will say yes.
This is reassuring for a few reasons and no, none of them are “this famous writer hates themselves just like I hate myself.” It’s reassuring because it proves that no matter how successful you become in your lane of story telling, that voice in your head telling you to shrink yourself will never get shrunken, but it can be suppressed during those moments and that’s another thing that is reassuring.
The difference between a working writer and a writer looking for work that you as an “unknown” or beginner writer should focus on is that working writers don’t tell the other writers on their level to “slow down” or to not be ambitious. They suppress those moments of doubt and they keep on working.
The next time you’re going through that bout with that voice in your head telling you that you aren’t good enough, don’t look at the next writer on your level who is fighting that same fight and tell them not put that negative voice in their head on timeout because you haven’t mastered the technique of silencing the hater that is in your head.
