The fear of promoting my work

Yesterday I posted on Instagram about how hard I find it to promote myself and my work, and why that's going to change. It seemed to really resonate with a lot of people so I thought I’d go into a bit more depth about it here.

On the surface I don’t promote myself for one major reason. Time. I don’t have a great deal of it, to put it mildly.  I have kids, a business, a marriage, a house, a dog, a life. Promoting myself and my work feels like one more thing on the endless to-do list. Time and again it slips to the bottom, then falls off completely, because I just don’t have time.

It genuinely makes me laugh that I still use that tired old excuse, the same excuse I used to use for not having written the novel I always wanted to write. Time. Oh, that old chestnut. Who has the time? Who?

Nobody has the time. You have to find it. Make it. Beg, borrow or steal it if you have to, but don’t assume that there’s a ‘them’ and ‘us’, and the ‘them’ are sitting on great swathes of free time not available to the rest of us. We all have the same 24 hours, how we differ is in what we choose to do with them.

Once we move past that great red herring, we start to see a truer picture.

What if people don't like my work? Think it's rubbish? What if I get awful reviews, what if I get great reviews and go to pieces under the pressure of living up to expectations with my next book, what if I get no reviews at all? This last scenario actually worries me the most. And in a twist worthy of a murder mystery, it's also the most likely scenario, if I don't promote myself. 

These are genuine reasons why I have to force myself to promote my work. But they're still only scratching the surface.

Underneath these semi-logical worries is a boiling mass of far less coherent and rational fear. 

Fear of being seen to try, lest I fail. A big part of me would prefer to just shrug and say 'well I didn't really bother promoting it in the first place' if the book doesn't sell well. A big part of me would like to look as if I achieve effortlessly, rather than admit to the graft. 

Fear about the true nature of creativity and talent. The pernicious belief that talent is something bestowed only upon the worthy few, who never need lower themselves to anything as base as promotion because they are simply destined for greatness. It's like I've got a Conservative politician trapped inside my head, convinced that abundance and plenty should only be gifted to those already born into it.

Fear to learn more about myself. To find out if my hopes, dreams and expectations are realistic, or if they need adjusting. Fear of finding my limits. If I refuse to try and fulfil it, my potential can remain limitless forever.

Fear to expose myself through my creative work, which is uninhibitedly of me. Today my publishers sent me their proposed blurb for the back cover. It took me 20 minutes to work up the courage to read it, and I did so from behind my hands, peeking through my fingers as if I were sitting next to my dad watching a graphic sex scene on TV. It’s that excruciating, that squirmy, that exposing. Somebody else’s interpretation of my creative work. 

Fear of being 'found out', that dreaded imposter syndrome that assures me each and every professional achievement of my life to date was a gigantic fluke. Fear that the dissenting voice is right, that vicious, manipulative and destructive criticism is simply 'honest'. 

It all comes down to fear. That's the very heart of it. And I know I'm not alone in this. That it never gets easier, I know no matter how many books they write, no matter how well they sell, I know authors all struggle with this each and every time they begin the journey all over again with a new book. I know all creatives struggle with it, whatever their form of expression. 

I understand the purpose of fear. I know it's my beautiful, brilliant brain's way of trying to protect me. I know it's essential. If I had no fear about how my work would be received, it would mean I hadn't invested anything of myself within it. 

But I’m also bigger than my fear. I'm ambitious, and a grown woman, and I really, really want this. I believe in my book. I believe in myself, not completely but enough, just enough to keep me going when the self-doubt is at its very strongest.

I'm going to put self-promotion in its rightful place, at the top of my list. Not just for my book, but also for my journalism and my creative business.

I'm going to own the fact that I'm working hard on my social media, admit that I want to grow my following and engage with people who like my work and the things I am doing in the world. I'm going to make connections with my tribe, and seek inspiration from creatives I admire around the world. I'm not going to feel ashamed of being seen to try. 

I'm going to ignore that voice that tells me it's self-indulgent and vain to talk about my work, that it's vulgar to be seen to endorse myself in any way, that it's just not British to be proud of what you do, that I'm only setting myself up to be knocked down.

I'm going to recognise that's just another way my fear is trying to help me, by stopping me trying, so it can negate any possibility of me failing.

And I’m going to take my fear by the hand and say thank you very much for looking out for me for so long, but it’s OK. You can go. I’ve got this now.

I’ve got this.

Does any of this sound familiar to you? How do you approach and manage your own self promotion? I’d love to know!

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Ways to overcome creative block

If you're in any way creative you'll be familiar with block. It's the moment when you sit staring at a blank screen, unable to type a single word. When you look at the scene in front of you and the image on your camera and the difference between the two feels insurmountable, and the disappointment washes over you.

It's that voice whispering in your head 'what are you doing? You're not a writer/photographer/artist/maker and you never will be. Who do you think you are, nurturing your grand ambitions? You'll never do it. Just do us all a favour and stop trying.'

It could be a lack of inspiration, or it could be that the inspiration is clearly formed in your head, you have a vision of how you want your creation to look, how you want it to make people feel - and the reality is you have blankness. A nothing. An empty space. 

For me, and I suspect for many of us, there is nothing more intimidating than empty space. 

There are entire books and courses devoted to overcoming block and I thoroughly recommend checking them out, and finding what works for you. But at the end of the day it's unlikely anybody else can solve the conundrum for you. Nobody can unblock you. You have to eventually work out how to do it yourself. It can be with the help of others, but the final push always has to come from you.

Here are some ways I overcome block. I'd love to hear your strategies so please do leave your insights in the comments below.

1. Go for a walk. Yes, that old cliche, but for me it truly works on two levels. The regular experience of being in nature fuels my creativity, in ways I don't fully understand yet. Truthfully I don't know why it works, I just know that it does. I take in much of what I see on an unconscious level and store it somewhere in my mind, waiting for it to become relevant. A walk is also hugely helpful for smaller blocks - struggling with plotholes, connecting scenes or even just working out what relevance that isolated chapter I wrote has, and where it fit into the overall story. The physical act of walking and the immersion in nature occupies the body and the senses and leaves the mind free to find the answers.

2. Talk to somebody. And choose them carefully. Last year I met an amazing woman, the very wonderful Sas Petherick, at Sisterhood and something about her really stuck with me. When I was wrestling with a block and all my usual strategies had failed, her presence crept into my head and I reached out to her.  She didn't tell me how to overcome the block, because that's not something somebody else can do. But she helped me see how I could overcome it myself. Her warmth and wisdom and aura of complete belief in me was the real gift, this is what helped to thaw out whatever icy armour I had constructed around myself. I highly recommend checking out Sas's work - her fantastic podcast Courage and Spice is a great place to start.

3. Sit with the feelings. When block hits often what I am truly afraid of is exposing parts of myself, because creativity is such an expression of self. Let yourself feel the shame and doubt and mortification and fear, let yourself feel whatever it is you have to feel without distraction. For me there can be guilt too, about devoting so much time and energy to a creative endeavour for which there is no guarantee of any monetary return. I 'could' have spent all that time doing paid work, or tidying my house - no sorry, that one isn't going to fly - but the point is, I 'could' have been doing something more worthwhile. But then what's more worthwhile than your creative work? 

4. Search for inspiration. Look at the work of others in your field and allow yourself to reflect on what you admire about them. Don't try and copy them - trying to do somebody else's work will never produce anything as valuable as the work you alone are meant to do. But look to them for inspiration and remind yourself that others have walked this path, and you can too. Chances are that person you are so admiring suffers from block too. The only difference between you and them is they found a way to overcome it. 

5. Switch off and sleep. Don't consciously continue to ponder the dilemma but don't push it away either if it continues to prey on your mind. Watch your thoughts and let them float up and away. The ones you need will always stick around. Don't leap out of bed to scribble down flashes of inspiration - trust that what you need, will still be there in the morning.

6. Alter your expectations. While you should never compromise your creativity and devalue your work 'to get it done', accept that all work is essentially work in progress and will never be perfect. There are times when you will have to make creative decisions that will cause you a great deal more work than you initially anticipated and if your gut tells you this is what has to be done, you've just got to suck it up and do it. But other times, anything is better than nothing. I struggled massively with writing a synopsis for my novel. I was putting unbearable pressure on that short document. It had to sum up the plot, introduce the characters, reflect the style and setting of the novel, encapsulate my personality, and be written in the tone and feel of the novel. In 500 words. And it was vital I got it 100% perfect because if nobody read my manuscript because the synopsis didn't sell it in the right way, that was me screwed. Yeah, not going to happen. So I wrote a basic plot summary and sent it off before I could question myself. It did not reflect my unique style and introduce every character and showcase the setting and it was not written in the tone and feel of the novel. It was, however, 500 words of plot summary. That, I hoped, would be enough. It was. 

7. Love the pain. Once shouted at me by a seriously fierce personal trainer who wanted me to hold a squat position plus two 8kg kettlebells for two minutes. LOVE THE PAIN, CATHY! Yeah my butt did NOT love the pain. But I did it anyway and my butt is off the scale KAPOW/vaguely toned. Sometimes things are going to hurt but there's beauty in all human emotion, pain included. If you're creative this pretty much comes as standard. Fierce weeping is part of the process whether that's tears of relief, joy, sadness or just downright frustration. Love it. Embrace it. It won't last forever. And if you are feeling the pain it's a sign that you're in touch with your true self, and that's where creativity comes from. Yourself. 

How I wrote a novel

This year I achieved a lifelong ambition. I wrote a novel.

I've wanted to write a novel since I was about six years old. I have multiple unfinished drafts saved on this computer, on previous computers, on computers lost to time, on computers that probably predate time (BBC Micro, anybody?). Until this year, I never managed to finish one.

I would begin and I would know how it ended. I could never do the middle bit, connecting the dots, getting the characters from A to B. Slowly my interest and motivation would slip away, or I would start afresh, try again only to find the same cycle repeating itself.

This year, that changed. I wrote an entire novel from start to finish, sent it to my agent, she got me a book deal and I will be a published novelist in 2018. The whole process was breathtakingly quick. I began in January. I had a deal by July.

In fact the whole process was breathtaking, full stop. It was fascinating. If you search online for 'how to write a novel' you'll come across many well-thought out blogs and articles and tips and exercises all designed to help. Most of them involve things like, planning and writing out the story structure, getting the plot outline completed, developing your characters, going through various creative exercises on paper (if your character went out for lunch, what would they order?) and other very sensible and helpful tips. It's all highly organised and linear. 

I did none of the above. I have no Instagrammable notebooks filled with spider diagrams, scribbled notes and sketches. The process of writing my novel was as far removed from a planned and organised creative exercise as it's possible to be. It was completely unlinear - it was cyclical. Here's how it all worked, and what I learned.

1. I got depressed. I began the year in a pretty bad place in terms of my self-image and general mood, and it got worse as I approached my 36th birthday. I felt impossibly low, stuck, drained, self-defeating and had no idea how to get myself out of it. On a surface level I continued 'as normal' but inside me everything was on hold. I had literally nothing inside me other than empty space and lack. 

2. I got reflective. Through a series of events and happenings my personal history became pressing in my mind and I became fixated upon my teenage years. I listened to music from the era on loop, remembered the people I knew, the places I went and the emotions I felt, and I played it all through as frequently as I played The Prodigy and Utah Saints. At first I wondered if I was experiencing a period of mourning, having entered my late mid-thirties, for times long gone and emotions and experiences I would and could never repeat. But then the internal processes began to change - again - and I started to wonder what might have happened if I'd made different choices or decisions, if I'd avoided certain people or become close to others - I began to play with my own history.

3. I got inspired. I began to write a story that was in no way based upon my own personal life or experience, but was definitely informed and inspired by the process I'd been through above. I have had this happen before - a creative surge, out comes between 15,000 and 40,000 words, and then it stops. I ride the wave and then lose it and have no way of getting it back. I assumed this would be the case, and I wrote anyway. 

4. I dug in. Parts of the book were excruciating to write, for reasons that would make no sense to anybody but me. Although not autobiographical this book was a creation of mine, something generated and put into the world by me alone. This meant exposing the parts of myself about which I feel most vulnerable. At times I literally could not type the words, I knew what I had to write and I could feel the words in my head, waiting to flow down my arms and onto the page, and I could feel resistance and blockage along with shame and humiliation. I could sit for hours staring at the screen, waiting to be ready, waiting for the excruciating feelings to pass. I believed enough in the outcome to override the fear, and so eventually, I wrote what I had to write. This was the first time I had found the courage to write what I needed to write and not duck out.

5. I couldn't let go. When the first roadblock happened, the first indication that this was not going to work, I was running out of steam and losing the creative flow, I expected I would just stop. I didn't. I kept going. I started again, a different iteration of the same story. I did this several times. I wrote chapters that kept to a chronological order and chapters that didn't fit anywhere but I felt that they would do at some point, and I felt I was writing them for a reason, so I did.

6. I went to the other side. I put all other aspects of my life on hold (as far as this is possible) and wrote. I wrote from the second I woke up until I was needed elsewhere, and until the second I went to bed, usually at about 1 or 2am. I was bursting with energy. I didn't need much sleep, I had to force myself to remember to eat, I lost a ton of weight and I felt a true vibrance within me, a genuine connection to the flow of creativity, that I hadn't ever really allowed myself to experience before. I'd skirted around it, had moments of inspiration, days here and there when the words wouldn't stop coming, but I never let myself really lean into it. This time I went all the way. I dived in and let it swallow me whole.

7. I began to trust the process. I saw that I went through cycles of intense creativity and productivity, and that these would slowly tail off and I would need to rest, get a few early nights, stop trying to force it and wait for the inspiration to return, trusting that it would - and it did. Every time. I wrote whatever I felt I had to write in that moment to keep the flow going. I wrote entire vehicles and characters into the story that I would later remove, but I wrote them anyway because I felt I had to at the time. I didn't really know why, nor did I question it. I wrote whatever my brain, or my heart, told me to write. I surrendered.

8. I abandoned all goals other than finishing. It became clear to me that if I kept trusting the process - trusting myself - I was going to finish this book. I put all thoughts of publication out of my mind, stopped worrying about whether my agent would want to read it and whether she would consider it worthy of submission. I didn't have to encourage myself or 'fake it til I made it'. I genuinely wanted to finish the book, to finish the book. That was the only goal. I retained of course an inkling that this could become something big for me if I did finish it and if my agent liked it and if somebody picked it up - but at this stage that was too many 'ifs' and all were out of my control. The only thing in my control was whether or not I would finish the book, so that became the goal, and that's what I did.

9. Once I'd finished, I started at the beginning all over again. I read and re-read and re-read and made change after change. Some small, some big - some so big they entailed almost a complete re-writing of vast parts of the book. I continued to trust the process. If my instincts told me something had to go, it went. If my heart said 'this isn't working,' I stopped trying to make it work. When I saw I needed to make changes that would mean yet more hours upon hours of writing and rewriting and would be difficult and an effort, I made every single one anyway. I trusted that it would all make sense in the end, and I kept going. I also trusted that I would know when I was done, when it was ready, when it was time to stop tinkering and go on to the next stage. 

10. I sent it to my agent. This was a HUGE step. This was the start of me stating my intention to put my work out there in the world. I was terrified and the 'what ifs' were off the scale. I've been working with my agent Isy since 2009, but only on non-fiction. This was something entirely new and different. We hadn't worked together since The Girl's Guide to Life on Two Wheels was published in 2013 - this felt as scary as starting from scratch, but with the added fear of losing the respect of somebody I value. What if she came back saying 'no this is just not going to work, please stick to non-fic in future'? I believed in the book 100% and I felt magic in it. If she didn't get it and feel it too, would that invalidate everything I'd worked towards?

11. She loved it and asked me to prepare it for submission. I froze up temporarily and struggled to rework certain parts based on her feedback. Then I struggled to create a synopsis - I think I spent about three weeks staring at a blank screen, completely unable to even start. The prospect of falling at the final hurdle loomed large in my mind. I tried various strategies, and they all failed. I wanted my synopsis to be PERFECT. What I finally sent was not perfect. It would do. That was all I was capable of, and it would do.

12. Feedback took a while to come in and the first couple were rejections, but still positive and encouraging. Then the offer came in and I basically didn't tell anybody other than Noel and my mother and one close friend. I had thought I would be screaming it from the rooftops. Instead I said nothing. Eventually I put something on Instagram. I've struggled to refer to it much since. Too many what-ifs again. What if they change their minds? What if they're not happy with the final edit? What if it doesn't happen, after all? What if it's a spectacular failure and everybody laughs at me and I get review after review saying 'this is shit'? WHAT IF?

The process is ongoing, in a cyclical way. At the moment the second edit is with my publishers, and soon there will be more editing, refining, tinkering, titles, cover designs and all the exciting stuff. But all cycles come back to the beginning and right now that's where I am - almost back at the beginning, one cycle has ended and I'm waiting for the next one to start.

Throughout this process there have been standout moments. Finishing, getting good feedback from my agent, getting a deal - they were all huge. But the real standout moment happened much earlier. It happened after those awkward, difficult times when I sat staring at a blank screen knowing what I had to write and feeling unable to write it, waiting to be ready to break through the block, refusing to shut down my computer and let the novel slip away as all its predecessors have done, because I couldn't find the courage to do what I had to do.

The standout moment was when I realised I was going to finish. That I was not going to stop and I was going to do whatever it took to finish the book. Not in a half-assed 'well I'll just put up with some parts that don't really work for me just to get it done', but finish truly, with the knowledge deep inside me that I'd done the absolute best I could. I hadn't shirked or taken the easy way out.

That was when I realised that the hard part - the middle bit, the connecting chapters, keeping the story going, retaining the flow - wasn't hard at all. In fact it was the easiest part of all. 

That was the moment I chose to trust the process, while realising that the process isn't really a 'process' at all.

The process is me. When I chose to trust the process I chose to trust myself. I chose to believe in myself. That was the moment it all changed. That was the magic.