Excuse me for breathing...
Brief thoughts on self-promotion, writing, and Imposter Syndrome.
At the turn of a year many people looked back twelve months and, in doing so, may have chosen to regale us with their 2023 achievements. Often these public declarations are punctuated with numbers of followers/subscribers, numbers of books sold/read, how much money they made compared to the previous year, and so forth. Whilst a lot of these posts are, I’m sure, drafted in a non-boastful way, in some cases their publication comes across less like trumpet-blowing than the performance of a full orchestra.
Not that we should be surprised, especially when our modern-day culture - including ‘reality’ TV and many social media platforms - increasingly panders to ‘The Cult of ME’. Another Instagram selfie anyone?
Rarely do ‘the unsuccessful creatives’ make such public declarations: “Hoorah! last year I sold 5 books and made $8.50”.
In consequence, I can’t help but wonder whether some of those who publicly laud their achievements are actually doing so more for their own benefit than ours, to reassure themselves that they have been ‘successful’ - and because they have to keep their public self alive. They have to keep feeding the beast they have created. [Elif Shafak has written a great Substack piece on the meaning of ‘success’…]
It won’t take a genius to work out that I’m not a fan of over-loud self-aggrandisement. As a committed introvert, I find self-promotion difficult - both in terms of engaging with the process of producing it, and being on the receiving end of others’ output. It’s a line I find difficult to cross.
As a result there’s always nagging voice that wants the rest of me to answer the challenge: “So what that you’ve written over twenty books? What does that prove?” When I’m honest with myself, my response is that those books prove a dogged determination, persistence, naivety, obsession. What they don’t necessarily guarantee is quality, or engagement, or - if you want to measure it by followers/sales/dollars - ‘success’.
But then again, isn’t such a response only to be expected when - as with hundreds of thousands of other creatives - one works always in the dark shadow of Imposter Syndrome? When you do even occasionally stepping across the self-promotion line - beyond which many others seem to be permanently and happily camped - is vaguely terrifying.
The relationships between the tectonic plates of self, writing, and Imposter Syndrome are interesting, and throw up fundamental points of conflict: the difficulty in the celebration of self when shouting about successes; the oneupmanship of your self versus someone else’s; the self over which we have no control and which tells us that nothing we write will ever be good enough - and even when it is, often that same negative voice prevents us from recognising it.
Which on one level is somewhat intriguing given how ‘selfish’ writing is. We lock ourselves away (sometimes physically and almost always mentally) in order to translate the unique self we inhabit into words on a page. No matter whether it is poetry or prose or drama, essentially we are dissecting and deconstructing ourselves and laying out the entrails of our thoughts, beliefs, ideas and experiences, and saying “pick the bones out of that!”
But in doing so, might you not also argue that such creative activity - perhaps all creative activity - is selfless? Would you concur that we are exposing ourselves for the benefit, enjoyment, stimulation of others? In such a relationship we - the creators - must eventually be relegated to the minor partner: the consumers of what we write are surely the most important component in the transaction. And if that is true then, on one level, the number of subscribers, sales, books etc. are all irrelevant; it is what our readers say about us and our work that counts.
I have had a few readers publicly say some wonderful things about my work. Such comments are priceless - and of more value than any tub-thumping upon which I might choose to embark.
Which in a way brings me back round to where I started. When people trumpet their triumphs, is it possible that some may have the writer-self/reader-self relationship slightly skewed i.e. they may believe their self is the most important one in the exchange? Might some not be consumed by that constant need to prove themselves, to set some personal bar ever-higher, to feed the cult - even when, after a thing is written and launched for consumption, doing so is perhaps the least important thing of all… ?
If you have made it thus far, Dear Reader, then you may well be asking yourself how - if I feel they way I do - I have the temerity to produce a post such as this… And it’s fair question. As would be the observation that in writing this - indeed, in being on Substack in the first place - I too am already on that slippery slope…
For now, I can only liken my action to a nervous self choosing to put one terrified toe across that invisible line, throwing a stone at Imposter Syndrome’s window, and then running away.
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Through a Glass Darkly
"Through a Glass Darkly" - Let me tell you about the town. From the window in the room at the top of the house you can see a ramshackle of roofs, vaguely haphazard grey tiles battling to establish the predominant direction in which to point. Framed by irregular windows and beyond the blackness of their glass, similarly uncoordinated lives move on, actors whose stages are often adorned with an ornament or vase on a cill looking out into the world, standing guard. And here and there, flitting in and out of view, phantoms of those lives, faces appearing for just a moment as their owners engage in dusting those self same trinkets or replacing dead flowers. Occasionally you might catch them in that vacant space between things - between thoughts even - perhaps looking down to the shops and pavements, the progress of others. Is that how I might appear at this moment should someone glance up from the street or from another window across the way?
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"XIV" - Having just finished packing in readiness for his return to London, Owen had been standing at the top of the stairs looking down. Getting ready to leave was always a short and somewhat dissatisfying ritual, although he could never really establish why. With work being unusually challenging, taking an extra day to make a long weekend away had proved an inspired decision. If Maddie’s fleeting presence had been an unexpected bonus, he was nonetheless convinced that in terms of unwinding from everyday stresses he had managed to use the time in Alma Road more successfully than his sister. Her voice — and that of Florence — floated up from the hall towards him, an incursion of sufficient interest to arrest his progress with his re-packed case and leave him leaning against the balustrade at the top of the stairs. From his vantage point he could make out a vertical slice of Maddie, one foot on the bottom step, her body turned to face the kitchen door where he was sure his aunt was standing.
Sonnets 61 - 65
"Insomnia" - You left the bedroom window open permission for the night to enter, to soothe broken dreams, repair memory’s line-of-sight. Such a trick will never work for me. Only defeating the compulsion to pry into your secret history can cure me of this cancerous nocturnal jealousy.