I cannot believe this woman suffers from Imposter Syndrome

Screen Shot 2015-05-07 at 8.49.39 pmI had been experiencing a bit of a reading drought until late last year, I had become so absorbed in candy crush studying and so used to getting myself lost in an actual web of hyperlinks while I surfed the net for too many hours a day that I felt like I didn’t have time to read.

But then apropos of nothing I picked up a book, and as so often happens when you read something you love, I got stuck right in. As I turned the final pages I got that familiar addictive fear that I wouldn’t be able to find another book that transported me in quite that way from everything normal and ordinary in my life. That’s what I love most about a good book – the ability to transport myself completely to another time and place. To utterly lose myself

I was lucky, I found the books. I have been reading, and reading, and reading. I cannot explain how happy this has made me.

But then something happened which threatened to topple the weekly voyages I was taking into other people’s lives. My best friend Kerri Sackville sent me the manuscript that she has just submitted to her agent. That’s a good thing, right?

Not necessarily.

I love Kerri’s writing, I’m sure you know she is a brilliant, expressive, often laugh out loud and enthralling writer. I love her columns, her blog posts, I devoured her last two books, hell, I even love her tweets. But this was her first novel and I’d never read fiction from her. I am very fussy about my fiction.

The manuscript arrived as a Word document. No e-book, no proof copy, no bound pages. Just a 229 page Word document. Saved as a PDF file. I balked. How was I even going to read that? It’s a very unfriendly format for someone whose favourite place to read is the bath.

I thought I’d use that as an excuse not to read it. “Sorry I can’t read it angel” I would say to her “I can only read in the bath and I can’t take my laptop into the bath, I’m sure it’s a brilliant book and I can’t wait to read it when it’s published in water-proof material”. I needed an excuse. What if I hated the book? What if I thought it was badly written, the story line weak, the characters limp? I wouldn’t be able to actually read it and how on earth would I tell her that she wrote a shit book?

I’d just have to tell her that I loved it. That’s what I would do. I would skim it and get an idea of some of the characters in case she asked questions and then I’d tell her it was “really lovely”.

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I read and I read and I read.

A while later I found myself thinking “I must tell Kerri to read this book – she’ll love it.” That’s the kind of thing I do with books I love, I get lost in them, I forget my real life and I think how much I want my friends and everyone I know to read this book. I want to share the books I love, I want other people to read them so that the characters stay alive for me and I can talk to my friends about them long after I have turned the last page.

I called Kerri. But really it was only because I wanted to find out how Rachel (the main character in her book) was doing. I missed her already and I was still reading the book (believe me if it wasn’t in PDF format it would be finished now).

It’s so easy to read, I love the characters, I keep laughing out loud, I keep feeling ALL the feels, I am reading and falling away from my world, that’s my favourite feeling in the world.

It’s weird to think that this was written by my friend. Weirder even that she suffers from “imposter syndrome” when she just wrote my new favourite book.

Watch her and I talk about imposter syndrome here and get ready to buy an absolutely stunning book when it is published. If you’re luckier than me you’ll get to read it in an actual book. In the bath.

Do you suffer from Imposter Syndrome? How many copies of Kerri’s book will you buy?

Comments

  1. Now that sounds exciting! When will it be available?

  2. What a lovely friend you are Lana. This post made me smile and smile.

  3. Kerri needs to learn how to send her MS to your Kindle or Kindle App on your iPad 😉

    http://johnanthonyjames.com/post/67236400194/how-i-use-google-drive-and-kindle-as-review-tools#.VUvqHvmqpBc

    • I am incredibly proud to say that I do not own a Kindle or any of its associated apps 🙂

      • I have no problems with Amazon or Kindle…. 🙂

        I load my book-in-progress onto my Kindle when I’m reviewing – it feels more like reading a real book – makes it much easier to see what’s working and isn’t.

  4. I’d be excited to meet you both, because you seem so normal. And fun. And talented. Can’t wait for Kerri’s book.

  5. Yes Yes Yes!!! I feel like an imposter ALL. THE. TIME!!! Especially with regard to my writing. Thank you for sharing this… nice to see it’s not just me 🙂

  6. Eeeek! I’m writing my first little ebook at the moment (just for my blog subscribers) and often feel like a complete imposter even though I know I have stuff to say. Thanks for sharing and all your 5 minute chats. Can’t wait for Kerri’s book.

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