Doubt.  It’s this crippling fear that sneaks in between the cracks and strikes when you’re least expecting it – in the middle of the night, after a great writing session, when you’re making toast.

I’ve been going through a weird kind of stage in my writing.  I’m proofreading at the moment, which means going over the text with a fine tooth comb, looking for typos, the stray missed comma, the repeated word.  Basically, if a structural edit is the artillery, proofreading is sending in the soldiers to check the remains.  And as I’m studying my own writing so closely, I’m discovering more and more not to like about it.  Sentences seem clunky in my eyes, dialogue forced, and plotlines unbelievable.

This is not an ideal situation.  I’m being published in September, and I like to think that there’s a reason for that.  I’ve got a tonne of positive feedback, including a lovely cover blurb from the divine John Marsden (for which I’m just so extremely grateful).  If these readers – all incredibly good at their jobs – think that there’s something worthy about The Book of Days, then I should be smart and trust them.

But then the doubt creeps back in.  “They’re just being nice,” it says.  “When your book gets out into the real world, no-one will read it… and those that do are going to hate it.”  I try not to let this doubt get the upper hand, but to tell you the truth, it’s hard.  It’s hard because I honestly don’t know how The Book of Days will be received.  It’s hard because, as an Australian and a woman, there’s a double-whammy cultural expectation for me to deflect the hard work I’ve put into this book, to shrug off any potential success as ‘luck’ in order to not be branded a tall poppy.  It’s hard because there’s a kernel of truth in the doubt – some readers won’t like my book.  That’s inevitable.

I think it’s this kernel of truth that makes doubt so hard to defeat.  It takes a small truth and magnifies it so that it’s all we can focus on.  It feeds on our insecurities, and I think, as writers, we have the right temperament – and the right set of circumstances – to have plenty of insecurities.  Writing is, by its very nature, a solitary occupation.  Unless you gather a tight circle of peers and friends around you, it can feel like you’re writing into the void for years until you find your audience.  And even when you do, doubt can still show its face in a thousand ways – in fears about your skills, your career, your future.

And sometimes this doubt can be useful.  It can make you read back over that page you just wrote and think, “Yeah, I could write that better.”  It can help you form great friendships and critique groups in the name of improving as a writer.  And, when you’re ready to go down the publishing path, it can lead you away from companies looking to take advantage of young writers and to legitimate avenues instead.

So how can we tell when this doubt is poisonous and not just a legitimate form of self-improvement?  And my honest answer is… I just don’t know.  Logically, I can often identify when I’m doubting for a good reason, but emotionally it’s so easy to find reasons to shut this logic down.  I think I just have to trust in the safety net of wonderful people I’ve built around me and hope to weather the inevitable storms of doubt.