As a former PhD student trained in the trenches of academia, I have a complicated (and long) relationship with impostor syndrome. Even now, I feel like I’ve fooled the world into thinking that I’m a capable scientist that knows what she’s doing.

So, of course, it only makes sense that impostor syndrome would stretch its horrible grasping tentacles into my hobbies as well.

Here’s a confession: I’ve never considered myself a writer. Even now, you’ll notice that in the “About Me” section, I’m a “person who dabbles in writing”, not a “writer”. (Or maybe by the time you’re reading this, I’ve mustered the guts to change the About Me to say that I am a writer; one can hope!)

Why is that, you might ask?

Let’s talk about moving goalposts.

When I was younger, I wrote a lot, just for fun. The only people who ever read my stories were…well, me. (And thank goodness for that, I produced a lot of complete garbage). During that time, my main thought was as follows: “I’ll be a real writer when other people read my work!”

Then came middle school, where I discovered the beautiful world of fanfiction. I devoured fics, and pretty soon, I found myself writing my own. For a time, I was part of the lovely Fire Emblem fanfic community, and people were reading my work. But then I pushed the goalposts out just a little more: I would only be a real writer when people read my original work. Not fanfic.

I wrote a few pieces of original fiction in college, however, nothing I was proud enough to show to other people. But once I’d graduated, I began participating in the (/r/WritingPrompts)[https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/] subreddit - a truly incredible community, with supportive and encouraging redditors. At this point, people were reading work - my original work. Still, that wasn’t enough for me.

I would only be a real writer if I could get paid while doing it.

After finishing graduate school, I tackled this hurdle. Thanks to a heads-up from a friend, I got a cool gig with a company, developing their existing projects and IP. But the project I worked on was cancelled before it was published, and that gave me an out and a new obstacle: publishing. I would only be a real writer if I was published.

I’ve finally cleared that hurdle with self-publishing my first novella. But I still don’t feel like a writer. I still haven’t been traditionally published. I still haven’t written a full-length novel (or at least, one that’s intelligible - my Nanowrimo projects are shoved into a dusty, dark, corner of my computer, and I’m too frightened to touch them).

But at this point, I’ve realized that there will always be that insidious voice in the back of my head, listing out all the reasons why I’m not a real writer yet. And when I’ve been more vocal about it, my friends and family, have been amazing in helping me tell that voice to go shove it.

Maybe I won’t ever feel like a real writer.

And that’s okay.