When You Feel Like a Fraud

I have been hiding out in a cave, where I have worked on essays, studied for exams, and written a polyphonic piece of nonfiction.

All of this was for school, but one of these things is clearly not like the others. The nonfiction piece was for my creative writing class, the same one which I wrote poetry for a couple months ago. I had less experience with nonfiction than I did with poetry--that is, I had none--and I'd never even heard the term polyphonic until the professor taught it to us.

As I worked on the project, I felt like a fraud. Who am I to write about my life? Who am I to put passages from other texts, including the Bible, into my story? Aren't they too good, too important for it?

Those questions led to others. What am I doing in a creative writing class when I'm clearly not experienced enough for it? How can I claim to have a voice as a writer? Who am I to edit my peers' pieces? What makes me think I can pull this metaphor off? Do I really know how to use a semi-colon? 

Who am I to call myself a writer?

That's a question I ask myself all the time as I work on novels. It's easy to feel like you're faking it as a writer and that, one day, someone will realize how little you know and call you a fraud, because you are one.

But really, we're all faking it. All we can do is use what we do know to produce our best work, and to continue learning. We'll never know everything, and that's ok.

Whenever I feel like a fraud as a writer, "Swing the Cellar Door" by Hey Rosetta! makes me feel better.

I'm sorry to reduce you to this useless imagistic bullshit, but maybe that's all I got

and

I'm sorry to confuse with some foolish thing that misses truth, but maybe that's all we are

and

I'm sorry to abuse you with this ruthlessly sadistic music, but maybe that's all I want, I'm just a really pretentious guy

Maybe all we've got--useless, foolish, pretentious, or wrong as it may seem--is exactly what we need to write some awesome stuff. Only one way to find out.

I felt like I faked my way through my nonfiction piece, but I was truthful when I wrote it, worked hard on it, and took risks with it. That was all I had, and when I passed my piece in, I knew it was enough.

See you on Wednesday, when I'll move out of my cave for four months.