On Feelings of Self-Doubt

Happy Monday!

Or not so happy Monday? It varies week to week. This should be a good Monday. After all, I finished a rewrite/edit I’d been working on for what felt like forever this past weekend. ~60k words later, it’s about as polished as I’ll be able to make it on my own.

You know what that means, though? It’s time to put it out into the world. Granted, it’s not the first time it’s been out there. For a while, Secondhand Soul lived here, when it was under development via sporadic writing prompts, and then it had a brief stay over on Inkitt, where the kind feedback & reviews of fellow writers pushed me to keep working on it. Now that it’s finally time to start treating it like a serious manuscript, though, the real work begins.

Querying *shudders*

I’ve never queried anything before. And honestly have very little idea of where to start. With that inexperience comes a lot of self-doubt, too. As a writer, I’m no stranger to self-doubt, but this is different than the kind that sneaks up on you while you’re writing. Because when I write, I write for me, I can push through those thoughts by saying “who cares? this is for me!”

But now that I’m specifically sending it out to others, I can’t help but wonder – will anyone else like it? Is it good enough? Will it ever be good enough? Though it’s received positive feedback before, that does nothing to assuage the panic. If my query letter isn’t good enough, no one will even read my manuscript’s first sentence. Agents and editors have tons of work to sift through – mine will easily get lost and forgotten in competition with work I’m sure is a thousand times better anyway. And maybe some that isn’t.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way. And I’m certainly not the first or last person who’s ever been faced with the daunting task of querying for the first time.

At the end of the day, the point is that we’re not alone in these feelings. Just take a peek at the #writingcommunity on Twitter. Encouragement and solidarity are around every corner.

Anyway, here’s to all of us suffering through it – despite our self-doubts and worries, we can do it!

As always, think happy thoughts!

• Musings
• Writing