INTERIOR MONOLOGUE

by John M. Floyd

I’d like to offer an assumption. Well, maybe not an assumption — let’s call it a guess. My guess is, no matter what you do for a living and no matter how good you are at it, you sometimes stop for a minute and stare off into the distance and think: Do I really know what the hell I’m doing?

I’ve heard it referred to as “medical school syndrome.” Imagine that you’re young and able and intelligent, you’ve been going to classes of some kind practically your whole life, and when you finally graduate from med school you find yourself wondering if you’re the only student in the universe who managed to get all the way through the program without learning whatever it is that a doctor’s supposed to know. All the other students learned it, you’re fairly sure of that. But somehow you didn’t. (By the way, I had those same thoughts when I graduated from engineering school — but in my case they were probably justified.)

I think this kind of self-doubt occurs at some time or another in most professions, and at all levels. I certainly think it’s true of writers. The difference, of course, is that mistakes in my (second) career lead only to poorly written stories, not to dead patients or collapsed bridges — but the fact remains that I think we writers sometimes spend quite a lot of time wondering if what we create is any good.

What do you mean “we,” Kemo Sabe?

I say “we” because I believe all writers have those doubts now and then, and I think one of the reasons for it is that our success depends not on what we think of our work but on what others think of it. And how can we know the answer to that, except from acceptance letters and rejection slips? As I mentioned in last week’s column, we seldom get much feedback from our readers, and the feedback we receive from editors and publishers don’t always inspire a lot of confidence, since the no’s usually outnumber the yeses. How could we not have occasional misgivings about the quality and worth of the product we create?

self-doubt: lack of confidence in the reliability of one’s own judgment, abilities, thoughts, decisions, etc.

Good days and bad days

A New York Times bestselling mystery author once told me that she gets out of bed some mornings and looks at her work-in-progress and thinks You know, this is pretty darn good. Then the next morning she gets up and looks at it and thinks Good grief, this is a piece of crap — how can I even call myself a writer? And the morning after that she looks at the same thing and thinks Wow, this is really pretty good stuff. And back and forth that way, every day. I must say, just knowing that an author of this lady’s stature and talent can even have those kinds of thoughts is encouraging to me. It tells me it’s okay to occasionally doubt your effectiveness as a writer. To not have any doubts at all can mean one of only two things: (1) you’re perfect and you realize it, or (2) you’re not perfect but you think you are. The first of those is rare, and if the second one’s not, it should be.

Even when we do experience some moderate success, I think it’s common to wonder if the first time we publish a story or a novel might be the only time. The literary world, like the music industry, is full of one-hit wonders.

Guarded optimism

I’ve heard that this kind of doubt is terrible, and can lead to everything from a poor manuscript to a complete case of writer’s block. I’m not sure I believe that. Some writers I’ve known who question themselves the most can consistently turn out wonderful fiction, and others who seem the most confident in fact produce very little, and when they do produce something it’s obvious they can’t write worth a damn. I think a reasonable amount of doubt, like a reasonable amount of caution, can be a good thing.

A guy I used to know said he once thought he was conceited, then realized he wasn’t, because conceit is a fault and he was fairly sure he didn’t have any faults.

Thank God he wasn’t a writer.