How to Write Killer Prose (5)

Self-Doubt: Taming the Rat

Self-doubt: Taming the Rat

You've decided to write a novel. You've got an idea you like, an idea that seems to have resonance. So you make a plan, and get to work. Things seem to be going OK, and then, a little way up the road, production slows. Then it grinds to a halt. Any of the following might be going through your mind:

I thought I had the next Gone Girl. Then I spotted the massive plot-hole.

Most novels are 100,000 words or more. I'm struggling with the first 500.

I've just re-read it, and honestly, I'm embarrassed.

Do I really want to spend the little free time I have on my own? For the next two years?

That sex scene. Everyone I know will read it, and they won't be able to look at me without thinking of me doing that thing. And worse, that other thing.

I look in the mirror and I don't see an author. I see me.

Who the hell am I to think that people will want to read what I write? How arrogant is that?

Self-doubt is a rat. It gnaws at you. But the good news is that the rat can be tamed, and when you have done so, you will understand that the rat is good. It is your drill sergeant, your interrogator. It will fuck with your head every way it can, and if you let it, it will talk you into giving up. But remember this: the ultimate aim of the rat is that you succeed, because the rat is you, just as the writer is you.

So how do we reconcile the two? How do we tame the rat?