Murdering the imposter: How I overcame imposter syndrome

Having the volition to be a writer is akin to dreaming of being a matador. The fallacy of having thousands of fans admiring your penmanship, doing book tours in different hemispheres, be lauded at literary award ceremonies while draped in designer fig leaves, purely because of the freshness of your word salad, is a dream I had to put in perspective. Rather, the umpteen rejection emails from literary journals, writing competition committees, and literary agents, stomped some hard truths into my cerebral. Like a humbled matador who lies on the ground, aware that six hundred pounds of force to the ribs can acquiesce a career pivot, so too rejection had me questioning my atomic goals.

I was in the first creative writing course of my academic career. It was 2015, and there were more prominent, extremely talented black writers creating and being recognized for their artistry than probably any other time in American history. Jesmyn Ward, Zadie Smith, and Colton Whitehead were rightfully receiving their flowers, and new writers of color were etching their name in the cannon. Of most influence to me, was Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Kendrick Lamar. Coates' Between the World and Me, seemed to speak for me as much as it did to me. I had shared the same skepticism of the system, the streets, and the schools as a sober youth growing up in rough neighborhoods, and only found refuge in the pages of books.

Reading Coates was like rereading Baldwin, with a more poetic centered prose. Listening to Kendrick, although he told his stories over heavy beats and west coast groove lines, was like listening to a hood poet laureate. Rather stories about erasure, hurricanes, or gang politics, I recognized these artists, these poets, as being from the same Ilk as Morrison, Ellison, Baldwin, and Hurston, and that their talents were Richterian in scale to mines.

So I was both confounded and elated when I received feedback from my classmates during our critique session. One classmate in general, a woman in her mid thirties, dashed her fully opened eyes across the lines of my short story with a smile living within her irises, until she came to the final line of my work and raised her eyes to meet mine.

"I can't put into words how good this is... This should be in the NewYorker."

Is what she said to me with a smile resting on the corners of her lips. I couldn't believe her. The imposter in me wouldn't allow me to. I inwardly questioned if I had written something capable of leaving another writer enthralled. I searched her eyes for any trace of deceit to find none. Then I looked at her bare ring finger and considered that her statement might've been inspired by desire.

I reread my story over and over, unable to believe that it was deserving such high praise even though I felt proud of the seven thousand words prior to sharing it with my colleagues. The NewYorker.. I skimmed the lines, looking for anything jarring, anything uncouth, anything that invalidated this woman's praise. I remember driving home from class hoping that my teacher, a published author, would dismantle my prose, that she would put me back in my place as a novice writer who was in a creative writing class at a community college, and that my writing was average at best, and my classmate's praise-unfounded.

I remember telling my then wife what I was feeling, remember telling her how conflicted I was about the critique, remember her confusion that I was even questioning myself. The intrusive voice must only live in the mind of creatives, thus a small percentage of people. So to most people self doubt must be a light switch, a problem that his easily addressed-just flick the damn light off. But those who battle with contradictory internal dialogues understand that negative thoughts are not the light or the switch, they are the roaches that come out when the light is off.

I received my story back from my teacher, the red strokes and annotations confirmed everything I inwardly thought-I wasn't as good as I was made to believe. This was both upsetting and comforting. It gave me permission to go back in my bubble, to cover myself from the glacial draft of expectations, of criticism, and failure. I dropped out of the class and put my word salad in the back of the fridge to wilt and kept it moving, focusing solely on my career as a mailman and my marriage.

But I couldn't shake the desire to write even though I shelved the idea of being a writer for years. And not just to be a writer, I longed to write something of consequence; to pen words that would make others feel how I did when Kendrick said:

"Heaven and Hell, base it all on my instincts.

My hands is dirty, you worried bout mud in your sink."

I couldn't shake it because it was in me. It had been in me since I was a child when I would write bad rap lyrics, stayed with me when I wrote stories in geometry class, and intensified as a man in my mid twenties. I was a writer, and needed no further proof than the fact that I was unhappy and depressed most of the time. I had fallen into drinking, my wife wanted a divorce, and I had a two year old son looking at me in admiration, wholly unaware how mightily his father was struggling with his purpose.

"How you gon' win when you ain't right within?" -Lauryn Hill

I knew that if I was going to be serious about my dream I needed to be serious about the toil required to make it happen. I started assessing the roadblocks that prevent writers from accomplishing their dreams of publication. Of most importance, I had to have honest conversations about my imposter syndrome, and what allowed it to thrive. I discovered that my doubt lived in inadequacy. That my fear of not being good enough was founded on the basis that I had not mastered the art of writing. I discovered that the only way to destroy my doubt was to destroy its home-meaning I had to get stuck in. I started reading books on the craft of writing: books on refining your voice, on sentence structure, on developing voice. I downloaded The Great Courses series on the art of writing and would listen as I punched the clock. I committed myself to learn and grow so that there was no more room for self doubt to live.

I read the books of writers who I looked up to. Ralph Ellison's: Invisible Man, was, and still is a great source of inspiration for me. I return to it whenever I feel my literary compass off kilter. I say this to say that I knew that I couldn't write confidently while the negative thoughts pricked up. I knew that I would have to kill of the imposter, knew I had to murder the fraud writer: the one that always crept up whenever adversity arose. He contradicted my belief that I was talented enough, skilled enough to have success in the literary world, and so I had to do like agent J.

Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance. I've come to live by that. Being prepared gives me the assurance that I'm ready for whatever might come. Being confident in my skills allows me to move forward when rejection letters hit my email. I know that the publishing industry is subjective, and that a black male writer is a hard sell for some. But all it takes is one yes. All it takes is one yes, one person to see your hard work, your diligence to the craft and is willing to go to war with you.

So for anyone struggling with imposter syndrome or is just having a hard go in their writing journey: assess yourself, assess your art. If you have put in the work and have found yourself within the words, within the madness that is writing-hold firm to that. Keep going despite the adversity, despite the rejections, knowing that some of the best selling authors have had their manuscripts in several slush piles. This is an adurous journey, and only the strong see the finish line. Be strong enough to push through. Trust that your hardwork will pay off. And make sure your intentions are pure. You might not be a millionaire or win a slew of awards for your writing, don't do it for that. Do it because writing is what you know, and it knows you. Do it because you have a story to tell and your story is worth telling.