Skythane Blog Tour: Imposter Syndrome Can Be Brutal

Skythane Blog Tour Guest Post By: J. Scott Coatsworth

Sometimes it sucks being an author.

I’m in the muddy middle of my current WIP, a novel tentatively titled “Twin Moons Rising.” I reach a point in every story where my belief in myself as a writer fails me. It’s called imposter syndrome, and it can be brutal for any writer.

For me, it manifests in that muddy middle. All of a sudden the brilliant idea I had seems like so much derivative drivel. I suck as a writer. My characters are flat, my plot boring and pedestrian, and I’d be better off as an accountant. A fireman. Anything but a writer.

The first time this happened, I spent five years writing and rewriting a novel until I just about literally wrote it into the ground.

It’s become a bit of a tradition, along with the consuming of writing chocolate every morning (that’s totally a thing) and the book release celebration. I pass the halfway point and my inner critic shows up, ready to trash my latest work.

Here’s the thing. I wasn’t able to overcome Imposter Syndrome until I accepted it as a part of the job of being a writer. It’s like the critical parent who pushes their kids to be better, or the editor who murders your story with a red pen, but in the end makes it so much better.

My internal critic is what drives me to be better, even if he’s a bit of an asshole about it.

So I greet him like an old friend. I let myself feel sick for a little bit. And then I push ahead and write through the mud. Eventually I come out on the far side, and it all works out.

So embrace your critic. Let your imposter flag fly. And keep writing until you’re flying.

Book Blurb:

Jameson Havercamp, a psych from a conservative religious colony, has come to Oberon—unique among the Common Worlds—in search of a rare substance called pith. He’s guided through the wilds on his quest by Xander Kinnson, a handsome, cocky skythane with a troubled past.

Neither knows that Oberon is facing imminent destruction. Even as the world starts to fall apart around them, they have no idea what’s coming—or the bond that will develop between them as they race to avert a cataclysm.

Together, they will journey to uncover the secrets of this strange and singular world, even as it takes them beyond the bounds of reality itself to discover what truly binds them.

Series Blurb:

Oberon is unique among the Common Worlds – a half-world with a strange past and an uncertain future.

Jameson Havercamp and Xander Kinnson are thrust into the middle of a world-ending event and have to scramble to save the world – and themselves.

Along the way, they peel back the layers of the onion to discover secrets wrapped in secrets that will eventually take them to where it all started – and may provide the key to saving Oberon and everyone on it.