by David Rawlings, @DavidJRawlings

If you’re a writer, you’ll have doubt. We all do.  It comes with the territory.

That gut-wrenching fear that we’re kidding ourselves with what we write. How we write. That the fact any reader would love our story is delusional.

Do you know what that’s called?

Normal.

What amazes me is that even the most successful writers go through it. I’ve heard  writers I respect – writers with dozens, some hundreds, on the shelves – wonder if they can actually write and doubting if they’re up to it. My heroes; amazing authors with half-a-library’s worth of books with their name on them, but still saying doubt can get the better of them.

I’m going through another phase of doubt too. I’ve had the rush of publishing and the vertigo-inducing wash of winning awards with my first novel. The cover design of my second. The marketing ideas for my third and the pride of writing about my native Australia. It’s been amazing, and a sense of achievement. Recognition. Validation that the doubt was wrong.

Then it came time to pitch some more ideas. The doubt returned quickly. Very quickly. My feeling of success was still warm but the icy hand of doubt came back.

I tried to shake off the doubt – we all do, don’t we? – but then I wondered if there was another way to think about it. So I was thinking about the role of doubt in a writer’s life. It’s often spoken about as a negative, but could it play a positive role?

There are a gazillion blog posts about overcoming it so I, in typical contrarian fashion, wondered what sort of positive role it might play.  I didn’t want to write another blog post about “tips on getting rid of doubt”. So in my writing life, I thought about how doubt might actually help me.

1. Doubt makes me challenge what I write. Let’s face it, I’m the worst person to evaluate one of my own ideas – either in a positive or negative light. For me, when I doubt my story because I wonder if that plotline is derivative or just lame, it forces me to rethink it. I doubt the character is likeable, so I examine him. It drives me to work harder.
2. Doubt helps me check my research and presentation – research or grammar. I doubt I’m right about the details, so I check the Chicago Manual of Style (my marketplace is in the US), and I get it right. I don’t presume, and therefore make silly mistakes.
3. Doubt is a part of the fun. I don’t know if this idea is going to get over the line or not. It’s exciting while waiting (he says, knowing he often thinks otherwise in the middle of the wait).
4. Doubt keeps me reliant on God. This is a big one when you’ve just had a success. When well-meaning people (who are clueless about the writing journey) start to tell you that you’ll retire on your “author money” in the next five minutes, that doubt over your next idea – and the thought that my first novel was just lightning in a bottle – keeps me leaning into God for whatever happens next. 

So that’s what I’ve learned about doubt and me. What role does doubt play in your writing life?

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