At the turn of a year many people looked back twelve months and, in doing so, may have chosen to regale us with their 2023 achievements. Often these public declarations are punctuated with numbers of followers/subscribers, numbers of books sold/read, how much money they made compared to the previous year, and so forth.
Whilst a lot of these posts are, I’m sure, drafted in a non-boastful way, in some cases their publication comes across less like trumpet-blowing than the performance of a full orchestra.
Not that we should be surprised, especially when our modern-day culture – including ‘reality’ TV and many social media platforms – increasingly panders to ‘The Cult of ME’. Another Instagram selfie anyone?
Rarely do ‘the unsuccessful creatives’ make such public declarations: “Hoorah! last year I sold 5 books and made $8.50”.
In consequence, I can’t help but wonder whether some of those who publicly laud their achievements are actually doing so more for their own benefit than ours, to reassure themselves that they have been ‘successful’ – and because they have to keep their public self alive. They have to keep feeding the beast they have created. [Elif Shafak has written a great Substack piece on the meaning of ‘success’…]Subscribe
It won’t take a genius to work out that I’m not a fan of over-loud self-aggrandisement. As a committed introvert, I find self-promotion difficult – both in terms of engaging with the process of producing it, and being on the receiving end of others’ output. It’s a line I find difficult to cross.
As a result there’s always nagging voice that wants the rest of me to answer the challenge: “So what that you’ve written over twenty books? What does that prove?” When I’m honest with myself, my response is that those books prove a dogged determination, persistence, naivety, obsession. What they don’t necessarily guarantee is quality, or engagement, or – if you want to measure it by followers/sales/dollars – ‘success’.
But then again, isn’t such a response only to be expected when – as with hundreds of thousands of other creatives – one works always in the dark shadow of Imposter Syndrome? When you do even occasionally stepping across the self-promotion line – beyond which many others seem to be permanently and happily camped – is vaguely terrifying.
The relationships between the tectonic plates of self, writing, and Imposter Syndrome are interesting, and throw up fundamental points of conflict: the difficulty in the celebration of self when shouting about successes; the oneupmanship of your self versus someone else’s; the self over which we have no control and which tells us that nothing we write will ever be good enough – and even when it is, often that same negative voice prevents us from recognising it.Subscribe
Which on one level is somewhat intriguing given how ‘selfish’ writing is. We lock ourselves away (sometimes physically and almost always mentally) in order to translate the unique self we inhabit into words on a page. No matter whether it is poetry or prose or drama, essentially we are dissecting and deconstructing ourselves and laying out the entrails of our thoughts, beliefs, ideas and experiences, and saying “pick the bones out of that!”
But in doing so, might you not also argue that such creative activity – perhaps all creative activity – is selfless? Would you concur that we are exposing ourselves for the benefit, enjoyment, stimulation of others? In such a relationship we – the creators – must eventually be relegated to the minor partner: the consumers of what we write are surely the most important component in the transaction. And if that is true then, on one level, the number of subscribers, sales, books etc. are all irrelevant; it is what our readers say about us and our work that counts.
I have had a few readers publicly say some wonderful things about my work. Such comments are priceless – and of more value than any tub-thumping upon which I might choose to embark.
Which in a way brings me back round to where I started. When people trumpet their triumphs, is it possible that some may have the writer-self/reader-self relationship slightly skewed i.e. they may believe their self is the most important one in the exchange? Might some not be consumed by that constant need to prove themselves, to set some personal bar ever-higher, to feed the cult – even when, after a thing is written and launched for consumption, doing so is perhaps the least important thing of all… ?
If you have made it thus far, Dear Reader, then you may well be asking yourself how – if I feel they way I do – I have the temerity to produce a post such as this… And it’s fair question. As would be the observation that in writing this – indeed, in being on Substack in the first place – I too am already on that slippery slope…
For now, I can only liken my action to a nervous self choosing to put one terrified toe across that invisible line, throwing a stone at Imposter Syndrome’s window, and then running away.
This and many other posts – including large amounts of my original work – can be found on my Writing until the light goes out Substack site. Sign-up for free!
Ian Gouge - Writer 