In 2013 I won a major writing contest.

The editors called to gush over my story.

“Tell us about yourself,” said one. “You’re only 25 and you wrote this incredible story. Where did it come from?”

I panicked. Any minute now, they were going to find me out. They’d notice I was not national-prize-winning material, and they’d change their minds.

“It was an idea I had on the subway,” I rambled, despairing at my banality. “But! I’ve been accepted into an MFA program! I start in the fall.”

(See! I’m a real writer!)

I thought this would be cause for more gushing. Instead, there was silence.

“Oh,” one said, sounding disappointed.

“Don’t let them change you,” said the other.

*

I didn’t understand then what they meant, but I do now.

Those editors heard my bottomless self-doubt, and they knew that that made me vulnerable.

They knew I was liable to trust other people’s opinions more than my own.

They knew I would not stand up for my own creative vision.

They knew I didn’t trust myself.

They were right. I spent the next few years changing my writing to make it “better.” Cleaner. More publishable.

During my MFA, I wrote many flat, lifeless, pointless things.

And then I stopped writing completely.

I let them change me.

*

Then one day, I happened upon a story I’d written in 2010, before I ever tried to publish or impress people.

(In fact, I was too scared to show my writing to anyone, so no one had ever read it.)

It was quirky and genre-less and totally un-workshoppable. It was like a toddler—wobbly, guileless, unaware of grown-up things like insincerity and judgment. It was effortless and weird and totally, completely “me.”

And I realized:

I used to trust myself.

*

Now I know (fast forward many hard lessons): my writing is awful when it’s posturing, and profound when it’s authentic.

Not just mine. Yours, too. Everyone’s.

The muse requires us to trust ourselves in order to come out.

Nothing makes her run and hide like self-doubt.

She needs privacy and safety and freedom to play.

When we stop trusting ourselves the way children do, the way people who understand the value of their own ideas do, she stays far, far away.

If it’s not safe for our own shakiness and chance-taking, it’s not safe for her, either.

If we abandon ourselves, the muse abandons us.

If you could use some guidance, structure, and accountability in your writing project, you might want to work with a book coach — one with whom it’s safe to take chances, who honors and engages with your wisest, most childlike self.

Book a call with me here to see what that might look like.