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Hi Ascenders,
I’ve been hiding.
Again.
Why again? you might ask…
Well, when I first started writing, I didn’t know what to expect. I was super fortunate to have people on my side to make my first series a success, meaning I could carry on writing full time.
I was truly blessed.
The folks who started reading and supporting me in those early days are still around, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am to them…
But even though there were folks reading my stories, I still found it super tough to tell people I was “an author”.
I mean, you know the story… I hadn’t even read fiction since I was a young kid.
And here I was writing?
WTF?
I had no business.
No place.
Who did I think I was?
I was an imposter.
And when I talked to other authors, most of these folks had wanted nothing more than to be able to write full time. They had spent their life reading and writing, penning their daydreams and playing D&D.
They talked about how they would burst if they didn’t just get it out on the page.
That wasn’t me.
I mean, sure, the stories came spilling out… but if I missed a day or two writing, I was still fine.
I just couldn’t come to terms with calling myself an author.
I felt that word was reserved for someone else.
And then one day, something shifted.
I was at my WeWork space in LA. It’s a coworking space, where you can hot desk office space. You’re surrounded by people about my age and a little older, all working on startups and “grown up” businesses that needed phone lines and physical addresses.
I used to love working there because it meant I got out of my apartment and amongst people. (Who’d have thought that writing for a living would be so isolating, eh?) It would increase my productivity, and they had soundproofed phone booths with a desk just big enough for a laptop.
And coffee on tap. <3
It was a little slice of paradise.
Anyway, there I was writing away in the corner one day, the scent of fresh brewed coffee wafting through the open plan area, as a gentle buzz of activity happened around statuesque entrepreneurs captivated by spreadsheets on their laptops.
I was starting to lose focus. Time to take a break.
Reluctantly I took off my noise-cancelling headphones, got up, and headed over to the kitchen to refresh my coffee with hot water…
“Hey!”
I turned around to see a dude in a white t-shirt using the next coffee machine over, smiling at me.
“Oh, hey,” I stammered back. I hadn’t been ready to get into a conversation with anyone… but the odds are 50/50 that you will as soon as you take your headphones off…
“So, what do you do?” he asked, innocently striking up idle conversation.
That damn question! I thought to myself.
That same damn conversation starter that I have to answer every time I get into an uber. The one question I always mess up, because I just can’t bring myself to say author.
I’m an imposter.
I can’t say author.
“I write sci-fi…” I mumbled, ready to turn tail and get back to my desk.
His eyes lit up. “Really? That is so cool.”
His eyes fell to my t-shit. “Oh… that makes sense,” he smiled, pointing at the spaceships I had on my shirt.
I glanced down.
He had a point.
I’m wearing spaceships on my t-shirt. Of course, it’s okay that I write sci-fi.
I’m a sci-fi author.
Something in that realization shifted my psyche. My perception of myself. Suddenly, in that moment, I felt in alignment with who I am… and what I do.
Because I had spaceships on my t-shirt!
The conversation continued, and after a few minutes exchange I went back to my writing.
As an author. 😉
What a shift! From such a minor interaction. From that moment on, I found it easy to tell people that that was what I did.
It wasn’t just the spaceships on my shirt though — it was because at some deeper level I realized that this had always been a part of me… even if books and reading hadn’t been.
I’d love to say this was the end of the story… but it wasn’t.
Only a few months later, things would change again…
More on that in a few days.
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