The Abyss of Suckitude

Most writers know what the Abyss of Suckitude looks like, because most of us have stared right into it—sometimes for extended periods of time. There are different reasons we find ourselves teetering on the edge, peering over. Allow me to share a few of my personal favourites:

1. Rejection, lots and lots of rejection. It can get to you, yes? Put a dent in the ol’ confidence? Give you a wee shove toward the edge? Yeah, that’ll do it.
2. Fear, lots and lots of fear. As in, this novel is taking me places I DO NOT WANT TO GO and even if I did want to go there I DON’T THINK I CAN! It’s just Too. Freaking. Hard. (In a recent most-awesome blog post, Libba Bray talks about something similar and describes feeling like “a very small knight in ill-fitting armor” – I can so relate to that!)
3. Adversity, challenge, insert-excuse-here. This covers things such as reaching that certain stage of your story – I like to call it Hell – when you realize one of several things:
1. that your vision for your story is ^{UP HERE} but your writing ability currently seems to be _{down here}
2. that you’ve totally written yourself into a corner and have no idea how to get out
3. that so-and-so’s book is waay better than you think yours will ever be (so why even try?)
4. yadda yadda I suck blah blah blah

At this point, cheerleaders may be helpful. Call on your best supporters and whine to them. Er, share with them how tough the writing is right now. Wallow, soul-search, scream into the abyss. And then, dig deep and STEP BACK from the edge, because it’s time to take stock.

See how much your writing ability’s grown since you started? See how many times you’ve picked yourself up and given it another shot? See those requests from agents, that precious feedback on a “good rejection”, those articles or stories that weren’t rejected, those projects that you finished? Yeah, all that. Cool, huh? You don’t suck!

Even without any of that (and maybe you don’t see those things yet), there’s the love – remember how you much you love Story, how you find joy in creating, how discovering the perfect word or crafting an awesome sentence totally rocks? Remember why you started this whole writing thing in the first place? Embrace that.

You’ve screamed into the abyss. You’ve taken stock. You’ve embraced what you love. Now what? Now you’re at the point when it’s going to dawn on you how very hard you’re going to have to try, how doggedly persistent you’re going to have to be, how much you’re going to have to learn, how many try-and-fail-and-try-again cycles you’re going to have to go through. And guess what? You’re up for it. Because damn it, you’re a writer. And you don’t suck.