There’s something thrilling about starting a new project, whether it’s starting work on a new short story, cracking the spine of brand new book, trying a new recipe, or beginning an online literary journal.  From the earliest meetings about South85, I was positively giddy about the opportunity to serve as editor.  Behind that excitement, however, there was (and still is sometimes) an underlying feeling of fear.  Who do I think that I am?  Sure, reading lots of submissions and picking the absolute best to share with our readers sounds like my ultimate idea of fun.  But deep down, there lingers a smidge of doubt.  I’ve met literary journal editors.  Mostly, my fellow writers and I speak of them in hushed tones, praying they will remember our names when one of our manuscripts come across their desks.

This got me to thinking about writer’s self-doubt.  I can remember so clearly the semester that followed my first MFA residency.  After weathering workshop and one-on-one conferences with faculty, I sat down to write; only, nothing happened.  There were too many voices in my head: my professor, fellow students.  I could hear them all.  So much good advice played and re-played in my mind that every word I typed seemed weak and insipid and was quickly deleted.  It took weeks for the paralysis to subside, and it became a bit of a pattern.  After each MFA residency, I would go through this writing panic (though the dry spells were shorter with each semester.)  Writing post-MFA poses a related problem, without a professor or workshop to catch your bad ideas, you’re left with all the old advice, now blurred by distance.  Plus, there is the added burden of questioning everything you write, a sort of WWLD – What Would Leslie Pietrzyk Do (one of my faculty mentors).

A few weeks ago, I taught a writing workshop to a roomful of high school-aged writers.  Now here were some people who weren’t burdened by self-doubt.  They told me about their stories like they were pitching to a New York publisher.  They were supremely confident in their work, some to point of being a bit baffled by criticsm.  While it might be easy to smile to myself at their youthful exuberance, their complete conviction that they have writing all figured out, I found something a little bit inspiring about their confidence.  At some point, I, as a writer, have to trust myself.  I can process advice and filter out the most useful criticism.  I’ve been given the tools.  Whether it’s writing or editing, I need to channel my inner sixteen-year old and plow ahead like I know what I’m doing.