Insecure Writers Take Heart - you are not alone!

My publisher emailed me the other day to say that advance copies of book one of King Rolen’s Kin had arrived on his desk and they looked terrific. Now any normal person would be dancing on the ceiling with news like this. My first thought was -- Gosh, I’d love to see a copy.

My next thought was -- It is real now. What if no one buys the books?

So why are writers so insecure?

Well, we pour our hearts into our books, then send them out into the world to be savaged by reviewers and placed on a bookshelf where they may never be bought.

We have little or no control over what happens to our ‘babies’.

In the past, in professions where people had little control over things like fishermen at sea or actors on the stage, they tended to be very superstitious. Here’s some info on theatrical superstitions. And here’s some insights into fisherman superstitions. One belief not mentioned on this page was the idea that those persons born with a caul (part of the amniotic sack) over their face, could not drown. My grandfather was born with a caul over his face. His mother put the caul between pages of the family bible and by the time I saw it 80 years later, it had absorbed the printing from the bible. Very spooky. It was like very fine vellum, and you could see through it.

According to Nathan Bransford, if you lack confidence in your writing, it might not be a bad thing. He quotes the Dunning-Kruger effect.

‘The basic theory is that when people are incompetent at something they tend to lack the ability to realize it and they overrate their abilities relative to others. Meanwhile, people who actually are good at something tend to underrate their abilities and may as a result suffer from lack of confidence.’

Which doesn’t surprise me, because the more I learn, the more I realise I don’t know. Which might be why I feel insecure ...

Here is a post about The Five Habits of Highly Neurotic Authors. It has some practical suggestions.

Which brings me to … what do you do on those days when your doubt your writing ability?

Characters & Superstitions

Fleshing out a characters can be a lot of fun. One popular choice, particularly with horror/suspense writers, is to give the character a particular fear that plays into the story. For example they might have a fear of flying and the big confrontation with the glowing aliens from Mars has to happen on the outside of a racing spacecraft over Manhattan. Or they are afraid of the dark, but to confront the villain they have to go down THOSE stairs into the pitch black basement. This often works well, but can also seem a little contrived if the latter scenes are not woven in convincingly.

But there are plenty of other options. One that is a bit of fun is to incorporate a superstition. This got me thinking about superstitions in general and thought it might be fun for people to post their own superstitions or those of friends and relatives. Having something from real life like that adds a real element to fiction.

In terms of my family, the one I remember most distinctly is one of my grandmother's (that's Eileen up on the left). She used to cover all the mirrors in the house during a thunderstorm. She also used to live in fear of birds flying into windows - it would mean that someone in the family was going to die.

There is the old salt over the left shoulder ritual to hit the Devil in the eye if you spill the salt, but that's never been too convincing for me. What's the Devil care about sodium chloride anyway?

For myself - I have one that I have never been able to shake that was passed onto me by my mother. If your ears are ringing, it means someone is talking about you. If it's your left ear it's something bad - if it's your right ear it's something good. You might say I live in fear of left-sided ear infections. This is totally crazy, and yet I can't shake it. It has a spooky king of logic. If my tinnitus worsens I could be in for permanent paranoia.

What superstitions do you have? Or interesting rituals - the more bizarre the better!