Writing while doubting yourself

There are days when writing seems easy.

The sentences flow, the characters respond, the scene moves forward, and you have the feeling that you know exactly what you’re doing.

And then there are the other days.

The ones where you sit in front of the computer, reread what you’ve written, and think that maybe you have no idea how to write at all.

Writing doesn’t always come from a place of security.

Sometimes it’s written out in the cold.

From that uncomfortable place where you doubt a sentence, a scene, a character, an entire novel and—if the day is particularly sideways—even yourself.

I think that part of the craft isn’t talked about enough.

We talk a lot about discipline, technique, narrative structures, character building, or how to find your own voice. All of that matters, of course.

But there is something harder to teach:

how to keep writing when you’re not sure if what you’re doing is worth it.

It happens to me.

There are moments when I finish a scene and I like it. I reread it the next day and not so much. A week later, it makes sense to me again. And, after a month, I think maybe I should rewrite the whole thing.

I don’t know if that’s insecurity or just writing.

Probably a bit of both.

The problem starts when doubt stops serving to improve the text and starts preventing you from moving forward.

Because doubting is also useful.

Doubt can make you revise a scene that isn't working, search for a better word, or discover that a character is acting because the plot needs them to and not because they actually would.

That kind of doubt helps.

The dangerous one is different.

The one that says:

And that voice has a rather unpleasant quirk: it always finds arguments.

If a post performs poorly, it tells you that you’re not interesting.

If a novel sells little, it reminds you of the numbers.

If you read an extraordinary writer, you take the opportunity to compare yourself.

If you receive ten positive comments and one negative one, guess which one replays in your head all week.

We’re like that.

Or at least, I am.

For a long time, I thought experienced writers stopped feeling these doubts. That there came a point where you mastered the craft, sat down at the page, and wrote with the calm of someone who knows exactly what they’re doing.

It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that it doesn’t work that way.

Maybe the doubts change.

Maybe you learn to live with them.

But they don’t disappear.

And, honestly, I don’t know if it would be good for them to disappear completely.

A writer who is absolutely convinced of everything they write would probably stop revising, listening, and learning.

Insecurity, to some extent, forces us to look twice.

The problem is when it forces us not to look at all.

When a blank page starts to feel like a sentence.

When we delete before we finish.

When we leave a story half-done because we’ve decided it’s not worth it before giving it a chance to exist.

You have to learn to set limits.

I try to do it in a fairly simple way: separate the writer from the editor.

When I write a first draft, I try to move forward.

I don’t always succeed, but I try not to stop constantly to judge every sentence. There are times to correct, polish, and delete. But if I turn every paragraph into an exam, I’ll never finish.

It seems important to me not to confuse the two moments.

I’ve also learned something else: not everything we write has to be brilliant.

That’s hard to accept.

We’d like every sentence to be memorable, every chapter to have tension, every character to be unforgettable.

But a novel is also built with sentences that simply do their job.

With scenes that bridge other scenes.

With pages that seem mediocre today and tomorrow, after editing them, find their place.

The first draft doesn’t have to prove you know how to write.

It just has to exist.

There will be time later to turn it into something better.

Perhaps that’s one of the best ways to live with insecurity: not demanding that something just born looks like something finished.

Because comparison also does us a lot of damage.

We read a published novel, polished by the author, revised by editors, and worked on for months or years, and we compare it with our draft from Tuesday afternoon.

And, of course, we lose.

We are always going to lose that comparison.

The same thing happens when we observe the careers of other writers.

We see the published book, the crowded launch, the reviews, the photos, the sales.

We don’t see the discarded drafts.

The nights when they were on the verge of quitting.

The doubts.

The manuscripts that maybe nobody wanted.

Insecurity also feeds on comparing our inside to everyone else’s display window.

And that is quite unfair.

I don’t have a recipe for stopping the doubt.

If I did, I probably wouldn’t be writing this newsletter.

But I have learned something:

You don’t have to feel secure to keep writing.

That is perhaps the idea that interests me most.

We don’t need to sit in front of the computer convinced that we are writing a great novel.

Sometimes it’s enough to trust the process.

Try again.

There are days when confidence arrives after the work, not before.

And maybe that is also what writing is.

Moving forward despite the fog.

Not because we know exactly where we’re going, but because standing still won’t get us anywhere either.

Insecurity can come along for the ride.

What we can’t allow is for it to kick us off the page.

Does something similar happen to you when you try to create something? Do you need to feel secure to start, or does confidence appear later when you’re already underway?

Thanks for still being there on the other side of the screen.

We’ll read each other next week.

Antonio de Rosa