I Don’t Know What I’m Doing

If you’ve read my previous posts, you know I’ve dreamed about becoming a published author since I was a teenager. For years, I’ve worked on various stories, fantasizing about what it would be like to see one in print. And now that it’s finally happening, I couldn’t be more excited. But I’m also…

Terrified.

I think I have imposter syndrome.

Seriously, I don’t know what I’m doing.

I’m a girl who likes to write stories. That’s it. I’m not a brand strategist or social media influencer or a digital-anything specialist. I’m not well-spoken, and I don’t know the first thing about marketing a book.

If I’m being honest, I have moments where I seriously doubt that I’m even that good of a writer.

So some people at this publishing company liked my book? So what? For all I know, they’re the only people on the planet who are going to think it’s worth the paper it’s printed on.

Yet here I sit at my little Sam’s Club desk studying Canva tutorials, struggling to craft author bios that make me sound even a smidge interesting, posting on social media platforms someone with my lack of charisma has no business posting to—putting it all out there for everyone to see.

I mean, why have just a handful of people watch you fall flat on your face when you can invite thousands, right?

Publicity is so outside my comfort zone.

And my community is super supportive—which genuinely means the world to me—but it also adds this deeper layer to my fear because what if everyone who says they’re going to read the book actually reads the book—even the people who don’t normally read young adult fiction—and what if some of them hate it and when I see them at the grocery store they pretend they don’t see me and make a beeline for another aisle because they’re afraid that if they look me in the eye I’ll be able to tell, without them saying a word, that they hated the book so much they didn’t even finish it?

These are the kinds of thoughts that run through my head. I’m not joking.

That’s when I have to stop, take a deep breath, and remind myself that my worth is not tied to whether people like my book—it comes from being created in God’s image and loved unconditionally by Him. If He’s pleased, that’s all that matters.

Some people will like what I’ve written, and some people won’t.

But even if you hate it, we can still be friends, and we can still stop and chat when we see each other at the grocery store. We’ll just skip the book talk and complain about the price of light bulbs or how we wish they would go back to using paper bags instead of plastic.

See? It’s going to be okay—even if I don’t know what I’m doing.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

I feel better already.