On writer confidence
Is masking involved because people don't want to see vulnerability?
There was a rare interview with Leonardo DiCaprio in some magazine a couple of years ago. In it, he replied to a question along the lines of, “What would you say to your fans?” with, “There’s a good chance I don’t like you.” I admire that kind of frankness, and aspire to it.
When I was on farcebook, the vast majority of my ‘followers’ were other authors looking to piggyback on each others’ reach. I guarantee that most of them never read more than one of my posts, but immediately noticed “author” in my profile name.
Okay, that’s an understandable reality of the game. While I usually didn’t follow in reciprocation (unless I liked what I saw them posting on their profile, which was rare), this social media algorithm game nevertheless resulted in my feed containing numerous posts by authors.
The author posts I saw were very often about insecurity, not wanting to appear at public events, preferring writing to verbal expression, desperately needing validation through reader reviews, that sort of thing.
As the space hippies on Star Trek said, I reach. (I can relate. Hard!)
I recently had a conversation with my buddy, Gwen, about my own insecurities. I have my first ‘meet a local author’ thing at my local Barnes & Noble on 30 Nov. Gwen had asked if I also checked with my local library to see if they do something similar. These are not at geek venues, where I at least know the audience has a selection effect in play.
When I told her my insecurities about (non-geek-venue) public appearances as an author, she was surprised. Very surprised. This is my mental health war buddy, and she was very surprised.
She asked why. “I apologize for having to ask…I just don’t think of you in that way. I always have a view of you as confident and accomplished. You should give your PR people a raise.”
A conversation ensued.
I won’t subject you to the whole thing, but after we wrapped up, Gwen sent me this:
What you wrote was so similar to this, and I thought I'd share...quote from another author as it happens. Resonates with me as well.
"The problem when you are a strong, capable, self-confident person, is that more often than not, people think that you don't really need things like comfort, reassurance, loyalty and guidance. People are more likely to look at you and say, "She doesn't need this", "She doesn't need that", "She's already all of this and all of that". But then the truth is that most probably, you are a strong, capable, self-confident person because you built yourself brick-by-brick into that person; because you HAD to BECOME that person; because you had determination enough to make yourself into the image that you knew you needed to become. At the heart of many strong, confident people, is a heart most longing of the things that most others simply take for granted.”
C. JoyBell C.
I’m not self-confident when it comes to my second career as an author. My first career, yes, after a quarter century of successes and kudos, I learned how.
But with writing, I see myself as a failure-until-proven-otherwise. And the proof is sales, positive reader reviews by strangers, word-of-mouth advertising by those satisfied readers, and unsolicited industry kudos. These are the same metrics used by tradpub agents to determine if they want to try to sell your wares, by bookstores to determine if they want to risk shelf space and related operational costs by carrying your books, and by potentially new readers. (That’s the “can’t get a job without experience, can’t get experience without a job” Catch-22 of this endeavor.)
It’s constantly discouraging and fatiguing. It would be so much easier if I were a victim of Dunning-Kruger Effect and simply believed that what I do is well received.
So if anyone sees X. Ho Yen that way (confident/self-assured) and thinks those “he doesn’t need” thoughts described by C.J.C., not only would that surprise me but also confound me.
If they do, I wonder if whenever I share the occasional news of a shred of success, they might think I’m boasting or something, when all I’m really doing is hoping someone will affirm and validate that shred while I quixotically pursue the real metrics listed above.
I theorize that some of this has to do with autism, some of it with culture and how we habituate to the idea that men don’t have emotional vulnerabilities. I don’t think the assumption described by C.J.C. is limited to autistics and men, but I suspect those factors amplify the effect.
Just because someone has written and (trad- or self-) published books, just because they’ve done so during or after a successful career of some kind, just because they present themselves with confidence, that doesn’t mean they are, and that they are somehow not human and don’t need affirmation. No one likes to see vulnerability, especially in men, so writers will always put on a confident face.
On behalf of my fellow indie authors especially, I hereby ask the universe not to assume that seemingly confident writers are somehow no longer human.
How do you tell if someone suffers from Dunning-Kruger Effect and has an inflated self-worth? I suspect that such a person will tend to dismiss and downplay validation someone throws their way because it pales in comparison to their own inflated metrics of self-worth.
The rest of us, on the other hand, will thank you profusely, possibly until you’re uncomfortable and wondering what’s going on. :)
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