Puzzling Through Writing with Sheryl R. Hayes #amwriting #UF

Imposter Syndrome

About a month ago, I posted about my first rejection. I made the comment that now I could call myself a real writer.  I had two friends reply to that post, pointing out that I was already a writer long before I was rejected.  I had fallen prey to something everyone struggles with at one time or another. 

Imposter Syndrome is the belief that your accomplishments are not valid, that you are a fraud that will be discovered at any moment.  Although many people have studied this syndrome, it is not an official diagnosis found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.  Some reports state that up to 70% of people feel that they are imposters at some point of their life. Physicist Albert Einstein wrote in a letter to Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, "The exaggerated esteem in which my lifework is held makes me very ill at ease. I feel compelled to think of myself as an involuntary swindler."

Puzzling Through Writing with Farah Evers #amwriting #Scifi

Hi Farah! Welcome to The Snarkology! It's wonderful having you as my guest in Puzzling Through Writing, which is a guest blog series especially for unpublished or soon to be publishered authors.

My Dark Drive

I started telling stories at the age of 4 or 5. My parents, on many occasions, wished they had earplugs, because it was pretty damn hard to shut me up. I was that baby who talked all day long, until I was out cold. When I wasn’t talking, I was a baby with a book in my hand. Wherever we traveled, I tugged at my mother’s arm to take me into the hotel bookstore and buy me a book. I didn’t need anyone to read to me, nor feed me the bottle. I read in restaurants, lobbies, on the table, under the table, under the bed, and every other nook I could think of, as long as my bottle was in my grip. But the rest of the time, I just frikkin’ talked. I regaled the family with fantastical stories about complex matters that truly puzzled them. One day, a famous Arab journalist who worked with dad called me a surrealist. He told my parents I would grow up to be a writer, like my dad, or an actor. He was right on both accounts.

I wrote my first short story at the age of 12, and weirdly enough, I still remember bits and pieces of it. I remember it was set in Alpha Centauri. I remember that because I was obsessed with my Child Craft Encyclopedia, and my favorites were the science volumes about the cosmos, evolution, and biology. The story revolved around a group of scientists who worked on a special laser based weapon, which they wanted to use against the government’s will. Come to think of it, I should probably rewrite that story.

I don’t know what happened to all my stories, but as I grew up, I was discouraged from pursuing any art form. Where I come from, we constantly lived in survival mode, and art was not something fruitful, in my family’s view. When I entered college, I chose something as close to art as possible, and that was Architecture. You can read more about how architecture fueled my love for Sci-Fi and vice versa.

But what drove me to write? Nothing noble.