Impostor Syndrome

The novelist Elizabeth Day on how to silence the discouraging voices in our heads.

- Elizabeth Day

WHEN I WAS 29, I started to write something that later became my first novel. It began as the voice of a single character sitting next to her husband, who was in a coma. I would sit in cafes, nursing a large flat white, and write without any clear notion of where I was going with it.

The thing I remember most clearly about this time is the sense of utter fraudulence. I didn’t have a book deal in place and I was writing into a vacuum, taking a gamble that someone, somewhere, might be interested. It seemed grotesquely arrogant.

Although I had spent several years earning my living as a journalist, I found I was questioning my ability to string a functioning sentence together. My inner critic had taken up residence in a corner of my brain — I had the voice of a real-life literary critic in my head while I was writing. Every time I typed out a paragraph, I would imagine this person deriding my clichéd turn of phrase or my lack of poetic finesse. At every turn, I heard her say distinctly, “Just who do you think you are?”

Eventually, the novel was published, and I continued to live in fear that this critic would review it. She didn’t: a few months later, I won an award for debut novelists. I’ve written three more novels since then but, to this day, I feel awkward saying I’m an author. I’m constantly anxious someone is going to call me out for not being good enough. If I’m really honest, I feel like an impostor.