This is K.M. Wyland and you are listening to the 628 episode episode of the Helping Writers Become Authors Podcast.

I hope you enjoy this week's episode, Imposter Syndrome for Writers is a real thing,

plus the key to slaying it.

Imposter syndrome.

It's a trending phrase these days.

You see it everywhere.

Just hearing the words may evoke a twinge of recognition, along with an accompanying

clench of nausea in your gut. A tremendous amount of writers identify with the idea of imposter syndrome.

Foundationally, this is the feeling that you aren't good enough, that whatever praise or success

you may have achieved was nothing more than a stroke of luck and that sooner or later people

will find you out as a phony or at best a one-trick pony.

Now it's no wonder writers seem to be disproportionately affected by imposter syndrome.

For starters, we put our most vulnerable bits on display for a living.

More than that, we work in a craft that vulnerable bits on display for a living.

More than that, we work in a craft that not only requires high level and often delicate

skills, but also one that is often judged arbitrarily with opinions based more on people's emotional experiences

than on any set standard. If you make money from your art, even that can often fail to provide any kind of stable measures. your

first book may be bestseller, but the next one may be a bestseller,

but the next one may not be.

In fact, the more success a writer achieves, the more aggressive imposter syndrome can become.

After all, the more people who believe in your success, the more you have to live up to.

And yet, it can sometimes feel like you're the only one suffering.

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