{"id":15320,"date":"2021-10-13T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-13T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/?p=15320"},"modified":"2021-10-18T02:21:04","modified_gmt":"2021-10-18T02:21:04","slug":"grab-all-your-magical-weapons-and-lets-battle-imposter-togehter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/grab-all-your-magical-weapons-and-lets-battle-imposter-togehter\/","title":{"rendered":"THE PARTS I DON&#8217;T TALK ABOUT"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" data-src=\"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/3.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-15141 lazyload\"\/><noscript><img src=\"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/3.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-15141 lazyload\"\/><\/noscript><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"has-text-align-center\">In this series apprentice, Imari Berry selects essays from Jessica Conoley\u2019s archives.&nbsp; Imari shares why the essay resonates with her as a newer creative, &amp; Jessica\u2019s original essay follows.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I chose this essay because: Dude this essay is so real. I felt this essay so deeply, especially about feeling like a fraud. Imposter syndrome sucks! But we will continue to fight through it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Initial publication date: 02\/02\/2016<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"has-text-align-center\">The Parts I Don&#8217;t Talk About <\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Living the life I\u2019ve dreamed of is a fight. I did not expect that. I thought it would be easy. I thought I would seize every opportunity and not waste a moment. I thought I knew where to go next and nothing could distract me.&nbsp; I thought because I finally figured out what I wanted (to be a writer) the hard part was done.&nbsp; I was wrong.<br>&nbsp;<br>The first trap: I\u2019m a fraud. When people ask me about my work it always feels like I am lying. I know the words coming out of my mouth are true, but deep inside me I don\u2019t believe them. It\u2019s even worse when I talk to my colleagues\u2014their recent cover story, their newest book, the conference where they are presenting.&nbsp; That\u2019s what <em>real <\/em>writers do.&nbsp; I clearly have not made the cut. It doesn\u2019t matter if I\u2019ve amassed a string of resume building successes or received kind emails telling me my work meant something or people beg me to finish a certain story because they \u201chave to know what happens next.\u201d I am a sham and eventually everyone will know. Imposter syndrome does not go away. Some guy in the New York Times says it\u2019s normal. I say it sucks.<br>&nbsp;<br>The second: Small decisions don\u2019t matter. It starts with <em>I\u2019ll do the laundry real fast<\/em>, followed by <em>someone just texted I need to make sure it\u2019s nothing important<\/em>, compounded by <em>I\u2019ve still got plenty of time tonight. <\/em>Each day I must choose if the decisions I make support my writing or leave me no closer than I was yesterday. Every decision leads to whether or not I will win today\u2019s battle, and every decision that moves writing farther down on my day\u2019s calendar is me losing precious ground. I\u2019ve learned a few tricks that make it more likely I will make the right choice: turning off my phone and wi-fi while I write, staying inside the house until noon, leaving the television off until the day\u2019s work is done. Sometimes I slip, but when I don\u2019t, I\u2019ve got an 85% chance I will win that day.<br>&nbsp;<br>The third: I have to suffer. I told myself <em>I need to finish this piece<\/em> when tension moved into my upper back and decided it wasn\u2019t going to leave. Somewhere in there my neck wouldn\u2019t turn to the left. Then I got headaches that sat behind my left eye. My stomach was a pit of nausea, because I hadn\u2019t eaten since yesterday, but none of it mattered; I wanted to finish the next part. &nbsp;I finished the next part.&nbsp; But it wasn\u2019t good; actually, it was bad\u2014I couldn\u2019t put my name on that. My physical sacrifices made me so uncomfortable the quality of my work declined. My stories are only as good as the quality of my brain.&nbsp; My brain is part of my body\u2014<em>oh yeah I need to take care of that body part too.<\/em>&nbsp; Now I\u2019m eating breakfast for the first time in my life. I go to Pilates; the endorphins help on the days when the sun doesn\u2019t come out. I set a timer for one-hour on my phone and when it goes off I get up and do some sort of manual labor. I make time to take care of myself.<br>&nbsp;<br>The fourth: I have plenty of time for that. \u201cI\u2019ll get us tickets.\u201d \u201cCan you help me on Monday? I know you\u2019re not working.\u201d \u201cI want to get you drunk!\u201d \u201cAre you going to visit your grandparents?\u201d \u201cI haven\u2019t talked to you in forever.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s just lunch.\u201d&nbsp; I always said yes before.&nbsp; I hate disappointing people, but that\u2019s the Pavlov engrained guilt kicking in. I still want to say yes, but now I say yes a lot less frequently than I used to. I\u2019ve acquiesced to the requests countless times in the past. When I choose my work instead of what others want me to do, I worry people think I\u2019m being selfish.&nbsp; I am being selfish, but now I know there\u2019s absolutely nothing wrong with that.<br>&nbsp;<br>The fifth: They\u2019ll just say no. \u201cWe\u2019re afraid your project isn\u2019t quite right for our lists at this time.\u201d \u201cUnfortunately, after careful review, I have decided to pass on this submission.\u201d \u201cI wasn\u2019t connecting wholeheartedly with your writing, despite its many charms.\u201d \u201cLena&#8217;s conflicts just did not draw me in.\u201d Forty-six ways to say no for one project alone.&nbsp; Forty-six ways to tell me my work is not good enough. When I get to one-hundred then I give myself permission to be sad and consider if the project really isn\u2019t worth pursuing or decide to pursue another way of releasing the project to the public. This is the job\u2014the unglamorous, hard, tedious part of the job. The part I don\u2019t tell people about because I have to believe somewhere in there will be a YES. &nbsp;If I don\u2019t have faith in my work, how can I expect someone else to?<br>&nbsp;<br>I\u2019ve learned to look out for these traps, but I know there are more hiding in my tomorrows.&nbsp; Every day there\u2019s a chance I may not win this war. I\u2019ll wake up, pull together all the weapons I\u2019ve cobbled together, and hope in that arsenal there is the magic \u201cthing\u201d I need to make the right decisions that day.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By Jessica Conoley <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this series apprentice, Imari Berry selects essays from Jessica Conoley\u2019s archives.&nbsp; Imari shares why the essay resonates with her as a newer creative, &amp; Jessica\u2019s original essay follows. I chose this essay because: Dude this essay is so real. I felt this essay so deeply, especially about feeling like a fraud. Imposter syndrome sucks!&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.12 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>THE PARTS I DON&#039;T TALK ABOUT - Jessica Conoley<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"You have everything you need to be the best you can be. 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