Last night, I went to a young-adult religion class for my church. Afterwards, we had food, games, and mingling time. One of the people I met was a guy named Tyler. As usual in first conversations, we got onto the topic of what each of us does for a living.
Now, I've found that imposter syndrome is particularly common among wordsmiths like us. No matter what we do, those nasty little voices in our heads always seem to pop up at the worst times and snicker at us. "What? You, a writer? Dream on. Who'd ever want to read that garbage?"
But I couldn't believe how interested Tyler was in my work. He was a pre-business student who freely admitted that he'd never considered editing or writing as a career and wasn't particularly great at it. But he wanted to know all about projects I'd worked on, how I made editorial decisions, what kinds of clients I worked with, how I got into editing, and so on. Not only that, but he was a great listener to everything I said.
My point is, if you think no one is interested in what you have to say, that's not true. If you're not having success as a writer, part of the reason may be that you simply haven't found the right audience yet. And those people might not be who you think they are.
So talk to everyone about what you do. Even if a given person isn't interested in your work (at the moment), it's a great way to make friends. We could all use more of those, right? And you never know--that next conversation might get you your next biggest fan.
Write on,
Candice
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