So you want confidence? Well, don’t be a writer.

A writing student of mine wrote this to me over the holiday break:

“I could do with more confidence that I can actually write an extended work of fiction; writing is always such a commitment of self and I face a struggle every time I sit down to write.”

It made me smile, not because I take his feelings lightly, but because the only thing I could think to say to him was, “Welcome to the club”.

If you think that writing a novel gives it to you, you’re mistaken. This is what I wrote back to him:

“So does everyone. I’d like to tell you that confidence comes with writing more, but I’d probably be lying. It’s as hard for me to sit down to my fifth book as it was for me to write the first page of my first.

“Perhaps the day you lose that, you lose your edge. That’s why writing is all about the discipline. Every day you set aside for writing, you’ll have a crisis of confidence. The only way through it is to force yourself. Make yourself stare at the screen until the words start stumbling out.”

Last year, I had a real crisis – I doubted myself, my writing, my judgment. I second-guessed everything I put on the page. I fell into despair, and made myself ill.

I always crawl my way out of these troughs and so I have. But now I’m sweaty-palmed at the thought of facing my writing again.

My new year’s resolution is to try to regain the lightness and lack of expectations that came with writing my first book. I want to try to recapture the joy of just writing – without thinking about what anyone else will think.

So that’s my aim, slightly easier said than done. But before I can feel sorry for myself, I’ll think about Marian Keyes – I found this article in The Guardian’s book section:

The bestselling novelist Marian Keyes has revealed that she is suffering from a “crippling” depression that has left her unable to write. This was how she broke the news to readers on her website this week:
My dear amigos, happy new year to you all and I hope your festive season was not too unpleasant. I’m very sorry but this is going to be a very short piece because I am laid low with crippling depression ....
…although I’m blessed enough to have a roof over my head, I still feel like I’m living in hell. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t write, I can’t read, I can’t talk to people. The worst thing is that I feel it will never end. I know lots of people don’t believe it, but depression is an illness and unlike, say, a broken leg, you don’t know when it’ll get better.