How to manage Imposter Syndrome and Shifting Goal Posts as a Creative

With Jessica Redland

I am excited to introduce the first episode of The Mindful Writer podcast.

Before I introduce this week’s podcast with guest Jessica Redland, let me update you on my writing life. 

The past few weeks I have focused on preparing this podcast and blog post. I’m afraid poor Jessica is like the first pancake out of the pan. I had the idea for The Mindful Podcast several months ago but to be honest I was afraid to make the leap and have a go. I have had some experience of recording podcasts as last year I recorded Castaway Books. However, this venture was different as I was going to ask creatives to share their emotional and spiritual experience of the writing journey. 

When we get an idea that won’t go away, I believe we need to follow it and see where it leads. Moving outside our comfort zone is healthy as we are learning new things and opening ourselves up to new opportunities. So, I pushed myself to follow through with the idea. I was amazed by the incredible writers who came forward and the honesty of their stories.

Learning to use new software was a huge challenge for me. I’m not there yet but I’m learning and I hope you will excuse the occasional blips as I get more proficient. I was striving for excellence but had to accept this is the best I can do for the first attempt – having spent many hours/days trying.

Although my recording and editing techniques may not be great, the interviews with guests are truly inspirational. I learnt so much from each and everyone. These conversations have lifted and inspired me. I hope that they do the same for you.

What are you working on now? How have you pushed yourself to try new things outside of your comfort zone? Please drop me a line with your news as I would love to hear from you.

dkauthor@btinternet.com

Now, let me introduce this week’s podcast.

From struggling Indie to a best-selling author with two 12-book publishing contracts, Jessica Redland shares the highs and lows of her writer’s journey:

• How she found time to write eight books as an Indie whilst working full time and raising her daughter.
• How she coped with the transition to a full-time author with what others might perceive to be overnight success – experiencing Imposter Syndrome and continually shifting goals.
• The words of wisdom that she would have shared with her younger self when she was struggling as an Indie author to sell her books and questioning, ‘Why do I bother to put so much emotion and energy into my writing when I sell so few books?’

I was inspired and motivated by Jessica’s journey. She really does prove that you should never give up on following your dreams.

A transcript of the interview is below click here to listen.

Links from show:

Jessica refers to a mini-series on Imposter Syndrome she posted on her blog.

This is an excellent series, well researched, informative, and helpful. I recommend you find time to read through all five starting with part one dated September 21^st 2020 here: https://jessicaredlandauthor.com/2020/09/

Jessica ends the interview by reading a poem that she wrote several years ago, before experiencing the success she has achieved in recent years. 

Jessica Redland

Transcript of Interview with Jessica Redland

Jessica Redland is the best-selling author of fifteen novels including The Starfish Café, and Hedgehog Hollow series. 

Deborah: Hi, Jessica. It’s an absolute pleasure to chat with you today because as you know I’m a big fan. I love your books and you have been an inspiration to me through your writing journey. And that’s why I particularly wanted to talk to you so that you can share some of your wisdom with our listeners. 

Jessica: Hi, thanks for having me.

Deborah: So, Jessica, you are a prolific writer. You’re an author of 15 books today. And in 2020 you became a full-time author with many best sellers in the Kindle charts. This phenomenal success came after signing a 12-book contract with Boldwood Books and I understand you’ve signed another 12-book contract since.

So, goodness me, we’re only in 2022 and you have been contracted to write 24 books, which is absolutely incredible. You were a finalist in this year’s Romantic Novelists’ Association for romantic novel of the year with Snowflakes Over the Starfish Café. 

Jessica, these are incredible achievements, very well-deserved. As I say, I love your books and I have great admiration for you, but you didn’t achieve overnight success.

Jessica: Definitely, definitely not been an overnight success, quite a long journey and five difficult years to get where I am now. So, the starting point was very much me joining the Romantic Novelists Association RNA New Writer Scheme in 2012. That gave me a push to finish my first novel. I put that through the scheme twice. And then, at that point, I put that out four rounds of submissions to a mix of agents and publishers. The submission process is challenging because everybody wants something different. And, of course, you are dealing with the rejection side of things, although I tend to see it as a process, so they didn’t hit me too hard. I secured a publishing deal just under a year after I started submitting and thought, That’s brilliant. This is it. Got it made. But then I started to have doubts about that particular publisher and the direction they wanted to take my writing.

I was seriously thinking, should I go Indie? But then another publishing deal came along that felt a lot better. I accepted that one and started working on my edits. My very first book came out in spring, summer 2015. That publishing company was new and if they had been able to match their enthusiasm to their ability, things would have been brilliant, but unfortunately, they struggled to make an impact. After about 18 months with them, we parted company because the publishing house was going to cease trading. So, I got back the book rights for my trilogy. Then, I had to kind of panic design the covers, and get them out there as Indie. To be honest, they tanked. That was really hard – starting back at the beginning. 

I wrote a brand new book, brought that out in March, 2017. That didn’t do well either.  I kind of went into a few years of being a struggling Indie. Pretty much, no sales, certain points where I did okay – a couple of Christmas books that did well.

Then, in 2018, I realized that that things were going to need to change and decided to start submitting again. I was very selective as to the companies that I went out to. I got some kind of close, close calls, but didn’t quite get there. It was really, really devastating because at this point, I’d written eight books. knew I could write, had some good feedback, but they just weren’t what the publishers wanted.

Fortunately, in February, 2019 Boldwood Books opened for business. I submitted on their very first day and the rest is history. I got a book deal to take on new books plus my backlist and it’s been absolutely phenomenal. It changed my life. 

Deborah: Fantastic. So, how did you manage to be a prolific writer whilst still working the day job? 

Jessica: I’m now self-employed and my husband has been all along, so he’s understood that when you’re self-employed you often work erratic hours. You often do need to work evenings and weekends. He’s a type setter, so he lays out pages of textbooks, and plays, and journals, and things. He works when the customer needs him to work.

If something comes through at six o’clock in the evening saying, ‘We’re going to print tomorrow. We need these edits,’ he will get on with it. And so, he’s very much understood and accepted my working life. We often have some time during the day with both of us working from home. Sometimes we go out for lunch together. 

When my daughter was very young, I did my writing when she went to bed.  At the weekend we always try to have at least one family today together. So even if I write and do things on the other day, there is this one day of devoted family time.

Deborah: I think that’s important – structuring your time. I’m in the position of being semi-retired. My husband gave up work when our daughter was born and so he’s at home too. I’m aware of when I’m not spending much time with him and then I actually compartmentalize time for him.  I mark out in my head certain periods of the day, for example, we might go out for breakfast or there’ll be something we do in the afternoon. I ring fence about three hours of my time for my husband and then I’ve got a good five hours of time, which is for me, for my work. 

I learned something when I was a mum and working full time. I think lots of mothers go through this. If I was at work, I felt guilty I wasn’t with my daughter, and if I was with my daughter, I felt guilty that I wasn’t at work. At that time a very wise woman said to me, ‘Give a hundred percent to what you’re doing at that time.’ And that was it. That was the lesson I learned. So now when I have time with my husband, go out for breakfast, or drive, or just doing something nice together, I really make an effort to give a hundred percent of my attention to him and not have my mind working on a plot or something else. It was a good lesson to learn. When I’m at my computer, I’m working with complete focus. There’s no housework. There’s no listening to anyone else. I completely switch off the outside world. 

Jessica: No, that’s great advice that is, definitely. If I’m downstairs with my husband and we are watching TV, or a film together, I tend not to take my phone down with me. I’ve never been a phone obsessed person, but that means that I’m not checking anything. I’m not seeing if I’ve had any emails or notifications. I’m not nipping on Facebook. So, even if it is just watching TV or a film, it is time together, away from the tools of the trade. 

Deborah: It’s important for two reasons, isn’t it? For your own self-care that you switch off sometimes from work and also to show respect for somebody who’s important to you. 

There’s something else I want to ask you because our time is limited and there’s so much, I want to get from you. I would like you to tell me about five blog posts you wrote in a series about Imposter Syndrome, which I found fascinating. I’m going to give links in the show notes to this because it’s very relevant for the mindful writer. I just wondered if you could spend a little time talking us through what Imposter Syndrome is from your experience of it and your coping mechanisms.

Jessica:  I wrote the blog because I found that in 2020, once I heard, and I’d got my first contract with Boldwood that I was experiencing this.  I’d had a new book and four of my backlist books released. I was loving, being a full-time author; that had always been my goal. But I was getting myself, worked up about certain things and I identified that as being Imposter Syndrome. So, I took a little bit of time out looking into it because I thought if I really understand how and why it manifests itself, then I could find ways of coping with it. 

I’ll read a quote from my blog. This is from Gail Corkindale Harvard Business Review  in 2008. She says ‘It’s a collection of feelings of inadequacy that persists despite evident success. Imposters suffer from chronic self-doubt and a sense of intellectual fraudulence that overrides any feelings of success or external proof of their competence.’

So, it’s basically at a point that somebody has achieved some success, and they think that they’re going to get found out. They think that they don’t deserve to have got that success. They’re not good enough to have had that success. It’s not about self-confidence, that’s something separate, but it is about self-doubt.

I was suffering massively from this – this kind of feeling that somebody was going to tap me on the shoulder and say, ‘You know, those top one hundreds that you’ve just had? You’re not – you’re not all that, and you can’t really write. And you’re not going to be able to continue that success in the future.’

So, I did quite a bit of thinking as to where that comes from and why it happens. It was really fascinating understanding the typical triggers for somebody having Imposter Syndrome, particularly for me, because I’m actually a really confident person. My day job was as a trainer. I’m used to standing in front of audiences capturing people’s attention.  I’ve presented to audiences of a thousand plus before, so the idea of public speaking, that a lot of people are terrified of, was no problem whatsoever for me, but I was thinking, why do I feel like an imposter? 

It came back to some issues in the workplace and being passed over repeatedly for promotion. And, you know, I knew partly why, it’s because I didn’t play the politics game. I’m somebody who believes in progressing on your own merits. I therefore had to be so much better at my job to prove my worth for any promotion than somebody who did play the game. And it just became this thing. Like I just had to prove myself constantly: always trying to be a perfectionist, always striving to do better.

It even got to the point that New Beginnings at Seaside Blooms really, really, took off and it got as high as number 14 in the Kindle UK chart, which is just absolutely phenomenal. I started beating myself up that it hadn’t made it into the top 10 and I just thought, What is going on in your head?

Before I got my deal with Boldwood to get into the top thousand – top 10,000 even, would have been a dream come true, but your goals shift and that’s natural, but mine were linked to Imposter Syndrome. I was looking at other authors and comparing myself to them. We’re all on a different journey.

It’s really not worth comparing yourself to anybody else. But I kept thinking, Boldwood are going to regret signing me. Then, when I got my second book deal for another 12 books I started thinking, Oh, we’re going to get so far into these and then they’ll go – Do you know what, we’ve made a mistake? Can we just knock 10 off and just make that another two and then let’s part company? 

It was really taking away from my enjoyment of – basically, a dream job. I had got everything I’d wanted: to be able to write full-time, and to have a supportive family but I couldn’t live in the moment. I couldn’t enjoy it. I’m not the sort of person who gets anxious about things, and so this didn’t sit with my personality, but I could sometimes just stare at my computer screen. I couldn’t write. I couldn’t write anything. Now, I can absolutely trace it back to Imposter Syndrome. Once I’d understood where it came from, how it displayed itself, I could then look at things I could do to change how I felt.

Occasionally it might just pop its ugly, head up and I’ll give it a little slap and it disappears- than all is good in the world. But it really, really stopped me in my tracks in 2020. It was quite horrific, so I completely understand anybody going through it and hopefully the blog post if anybody does read it will help. It’s long, but it really breaks it all down – all the different ways Imposter Syndrome manifests.

Deborah: It’s an excellent blog post and I recommend people read it. As I say, the link will be on the show notes. I wonder why we all do that to ourselves? Every attribute that we have has a positive and a negative side doesn’t it? So, the same thing that pushed you from being independently published, all the books you’ve produced and then getting your contract with Boldwood that is the positive. The flip side of that is the same thing that drove you to do better and better is still driving you to say, It’s not good enough. It’s not good enough. You’ve got to do better. You’ve got to do better. And we never stop to just enjoy and celebrate our success. To say, I’ve done a really good job.

Jessica:  No, we don’t. It’s funny because we’re continually shifting goalposts, We don’t pause to say, wow, I’ve met one. I’m so proud of that. Take a little bit of time out, celebrate that success. You just immediately think – What’s the next one? 

Before I’d thought massively about having imposter syndrome, I was aware of it as it would come up in other ways, but not really before I achieved success as an author.

I wrote a poem some time ago, which is also a blog post about shifting goals. It starts off with the idea of wanting, just to write a book, see if you can, and then to write more than one book and then it’s, I want it to be in this chart position. It goes through all the goal shifts: ultimately wanting movie deals, and all sorts of things. You have to take yourself to what is the original goal. I often say this anytime I’m having a conversation with an author friend who is struggling a bit because we all do. And it’s – Go back to – what was the goal that you started off with? And if that was, like me, you just wanted to write a book and then you wanted to become a writer and write full time then you’ve already achieved that. Anything that you achieve over and above that is an absolute bonus.

I look at all of the chart positions, the sales, they are bonuses. I earn enough to write full-time and that’s all I ever wanted out of it. I keep reminding myself of that goal. 

Deborah: I think there’s two different things that drive us in in what you’ve been talking about. One is looking for recognition: where you are in the charts, getting that feedback, that is perhaps the unhealthy aspect. I think the positive is: I want to do this and now I’m going a bit further – pushing myself to achieve. Because I see that as following a dream in your heart.

I always say there’s a seed sown in your heart. It is from your soul and you are compelled to follow. When you listen to that inner voice it can take you on the right path and journey for you to become your true self and fulfil your potential.

That’s the positive aspect. The negative one is all of those voices, those goblins in the head – the Thought Goblins: You can do better. She’s doing better than me. Where am I in the charts? It is about trying to silence that voice. 

Jessica: I now refer to that and other people do as well me, as being the noise. It’s not my term. It’s all that noise around you. And, and the thing is if you were to look at another author who has got a book, say at, number 10 in the Kindle chart, that’s not reflective of everything. They may be number 10 because there’s just been a promotion at that moment. It may be, because their price is different. It may be that they’ve just gone into prime reading. And it may be that whilst they get that higher position, they drop out the charts faster and long-term don’t sell as many copies. There’s just so much influencing this that you can’t put much stock in a chart position.

There’s also, if we’re talking Amazon, algorithms that with the books that are part of their own publishing houses will chart higher. There are all sorts of factors that you just don’t know – behind the scenes, how it’s all working. Chart position is one thing, but it’s not everything. If you look at the Sunday Times best seller list, you don’t actually have to sell a phenomenal number of books to appear on that, but to appear at the top of the Kindle chart, you have to sell quite a phenomenal number of eBooks. And yet so many people equate being on the Sunday Times bestseller list as what success is and not so much on the Kindle top one hundred. The volume shifted is much, much greater for a book to be in the Kindle top hundreds. So, there’s all sorts of things that just go on and you just have to silence it and feel proud of your work or you could drive yourself crazy.

Those days when there are zero sales you can you start questioning. Why am I bothering? The time I’m investing in this book, the amount of emotion I’m putting into this and nobody’s buying the book – so, what’s the point? But then when your royalty statement comes through or whatever, it can be pleasant surprise.

Deborah: So that brings me to a question for you. You were an Indie author for a good few years before you were published by Boldwood; looking at where you are now, if you were talking to yourself in those early days, when I think you said in your blog, perhaps only your mum and your close friends were reading your book – maybe thinking: Why am I bothering? What would be the words of wisdom you would whisper in the ear of your younger self who was feeling despondent?

Jessica: It would be: Just keep believing. I mean, I would never have written a book, if I didn’t think I could write a book, and I didn’t think it was a good enough story, and I didn’t think I was a good enough storyteller. So, keep going back to that. The self-belief in the story that you have, that people will want to read. Accept that the roller coaster, to use a bit of a cliche, but the roller coaster absolutely is how publishing works.

There are highs and lows, even those who have a contract, maybe for two or three books, if one of the big five publishers, they can suddenly find that that their contract is not renewed, or they choose not to renew it. Maybe book one does phenomenally well but book two doesn’t. You know, there are so many peaks and troughs in what we do.

I got a publishing deal right at the front. And at the point I was about to give up with the submissions process thinking, I’ve got it made. I’m going to be an author. Brilliant. But the publishers didn’t do very well and went bust and I got my rights back and became Indie for five years. So, you know, so, so much can change just in the blink of an eye.

And so, keep believing, keep going, have that resilience. If you have stories to tell burning inside of you. Keep, keep, telling them because at one point it could all change. And I would remind myself about the importance of finding your tribe, finding a group of writers around you, who understand it, who get what it’s like when you are having Imposter syndrome, Comparisonitis, all the other things that go with us, those high moments, those low moments. 

I’ve been part of a writing collective for about nine years. It’s just been really encouraging, seeing everybody become a published author, indie, traditionally, or hybrid, and just having that support network because when somebody is on a high, somebody else might be on a low and they can support them with that and vice versa.

I’d love to have had a crystal ball and said, look, this is where you’ll be in in five year’s time. Just keep going that. That’s my  message to keep going. Don’t give up because this, this was a dream. This is what I wanted to do. 

The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why

Mark Twain

On the day that I, I got my first novel published my husband got me a canvas of that novel, and also a novella that had come out before. So, two canvases of my covers. But he also got one that sits in the middle that has a quote on it by Mark Twain, which says: The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why. And then it’s got the date that my book was published and it says:  The day life changed for Jessica Redland on it, love from him and my daughter. I usually actually get quite tearful when I read that I was trying to kind of keep the emotion in check then. And it’s just such a perfect quote because all my life although I didn’t know it I was working to this point. 

I’m not somebody who wanted to be a writer from a young age. It never even entered my head to be an author when I was a reader, you know, it was something other people did. It was only when I hit about 30 that I even thought about it. But it was as though I’d been building up to that all my life. My favourite subject in school was English. My favourite jobs were always the ones in HR that involved some sort of creative writing. I used to design assessment centre exercises. I used to create scenarios of characters that were part of that. Little did I know that I was building up to becoming an author and creating characters.

Around that time somebody said to me, I should write a book. I just said. Gosh, I should. I’d love that. And then everything from that point just fell into place. So, yeah, that was the day that I found out why I was born. I was born to be a writer. And the big thing is I get so many messages from readers talking about how my books have helped them through dark times through three years of the pandemic, particularly more recently, but even some of the subjects that I tackle in Snowflakes over the Starfish Cafe, that you mentioned at the beginning, that book was up for an award. It deals with bereavement. And I’ve had messages from people saying it’s been so cathartic reading that because I’ve suffered some extreme bereavements as well.

For readers to read the feelings of main characters and feel that I’m normal in feeling like that. It’s just, it’s made me turn a corner and you just think, wow, I never thought about any of that when I started out as a writer, that we can make a difference in our own little way through the characters that we create and the stories that we tell.

That’s the reason in the moments when I wasn’t selling any books and thinking It’s never going to work for me – that’s the reason to keep going. 

Deborah: Fantastic. I absolutely loved that story and it really chimes a cord makes I’m often writing in my blog about the seeds of desire in your heart and to listen to that and to follow it.

And, you know, I also think that our whole life is like a book. Everything happens for a purpose in terms of all of our experiences. As you say, they all, come together and you go, Aha. That experience is making me who I am and that’s why because this is what I’ve got to do. And the other thing you said about somebody saying to you, You should try to write a book – It’s those little miracles, all the people that come into our lives. They may be strangers. Sometimes a person says something that takes you off on a path, or something, you read. They are whispers to point you in the right direction.

Jessica: It’s so funny because it was my manager at work. I used to write lots of reports and he would laugh reading them. One day he said, ‘I love reading your reports. They’re like a story. Maybe you should make them a bit more business-like. But have you ever thought about writing a book, you really should? Nobody had ever said that to me. And it was like this light bulb, just kind of fireworks explosion. Yes. Yes, I should. The next thing was finding an idea for a book, but then by some pure coincidence a set of events happened in my life that gave me the premise of my first book.

Deborah: So again, as you say, little things present themselves and you go, Oh wow. I can do something with that. Which shows why we have to be open to listen to what’s around us.

When we get too much into our head, we’ve got all that noise going on. We don’t pick up on little messages which are there for us to see and listen to. We need to go inward and be at receptive so that we can pick up on ideas and opportunities. 

Jessica: Definitely.

Deborah: Before you go, please tell us about the latest books that you have got out. I will provide links in the show notes so people can find out more about. 

Jessica: Thank you, Deborah. I have a new novel that just came out in early April, called Spring Tides at the Starfish Cafe. And that is a sequel of Snowflakes over the Starfish Cafe. I’ve been doing a bit of a promotion and celebration of that. I’ve also just about hit the ends of the final edits on the fifth book in the Hedgehog Hollow series called Chasing Dreams at Hedgehog Hollow which is out on the 28th of June, but available for pre-order. And I’m just about to dive into the final book in that series, which is out on the 6th of September. That’s set at Christmas. Although we don’t quite have a title, we’ve got a couple of working titles at the moment and that’s pretty typical. I write four books a year, so quite often I am promoting one, finishing the edits on another, and writing the next one. So, kind of working a few books in advance.

That will take me up until about probably June to have worked on that Christmas one. And then I will be writing my first 2023 release, which sounds really scary talking that far ahead. I work about eight months in advance.

Deborah: And this is why I admire you. You’re a prolific writer. You’re determined. You’re resilient. Absolute pleasure talking to you Jessica. 

Jessica: Thank you. And thank you so much for inviting me as a guest. I will look forward to listening to the other podcasts.

Deborah:  I’ve got loads of interesting guests that I’m chatting with. So, me too.

Never Enough by Jessica Redland

All I want is one idea
How difficult could that be?
A plot that has some mileage
That would be enough for me

All I want is to write a book
What an achievement that would be
300 pages, a brand new world
That would be enough for me

All I want is for someone to read it
A friend or family
If they said it was good; that I could write
That would be enough for me

All I want is an eBook publisher
How amazing would that be?
To believe in my story and share my work
That would be enough for me

All I want is to make some sales
Just one, or two, or three
A handful of readers to download to Kindle
That would be enough for me

All I want is some good reviews
How flattering would it be
For strangers to say they love my work?
That would be enough for me

All I want is to climb the charts
It would make me so happy
To see my ‘baby’ go up and up
That would be enough for me

All I want is a bestseller tag
In some obscure category
That orange flag would scream success
That would be enough for me

All I want is to break the top hundred
I know there’s no guarantee
But then I’d know I’ve got some talent
That would be enough for me

All I want is to be top ten
Can anyone hear my plea?
Side by side with my favourite authors
That would be enough for me

All I want is a number one
I’d barely contain my glee
That coveted slot and all those sales
That would be enough for me

All I want is a paperback
Something I can hold and see
To say “I wrote this”, oh my word
That would be enough for me

All I want is to write full time
A lady that lunches? So me!
Full days in my office, creating away
That would be enough for me

All I want is an audio deal
Listening while sipping my tea
Those accents, those sounds, my world brought to life
That would be enough for me

All I want is my books on the shelves
Of a supermarket: big four. Or three
The sales, the success would remove all the stress
That would be enough for me

All I want is a top five publisher
The validation? My pants I would pee!
I’d finally know that I really can write
That would be enough for me

All I want is to make foreign sales
Australia? France? Germany?
Translations galore, the world at my door
That would be enough for me

All I want is the film to be made
The big screen for everyone to see
Amazing reviews, the compliments ooze
That would be enough for me

All I want is an Oscar win
I’d really be top of the tree
Best screenplay? Oh my, I think I would cry
That would be enough for me

All I want is some book two success
And the same for book number three
Doing even better than first out the grid
That would be enough for me

All I wanted was one idea
To write a book, just for me
But the goalposts kept changing, my life rearranging
And it’s never enough for me

It’s easy to feel so overwhelmed
When sales aren’t what I’d hoped
And reviews are mean and personal
And very unprovoked
When all the writers that I know
Seem to do so great
And the day job takes priority
So my writing has to wait

So it’s back to the start to recapture that feeling
When first I typed “the end”
When someone said, “I loved it!”
Even though they were a friend
When I sat at my keyboard and laughed and cried
As my characters found their voices
When the publishing world was unexplored
But filled with exciting choices

The task once seemed impossible:
To write a full-length story
A big fat tick against that goal
I should bask in the glory
That I achieved what many don’t
And repeated it six-fold
I am a writer BECAUSE I WRITE;
Not for how many I’ve sold

You can find out more about Jessica’s books on her website: https://jessicaredlandauthor.com/my-books/

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