WP4: Writing and Self Worth
Imposter syndrome sucks.
It’s one thing to determine your self worth based on others’ opinions, but it’s something else to never let anything or anyone validate your work. I have my own battle with imposter syndrome regarding creative projects, but I never realized how much it impacts my academic work until writing for this class.
Usually when you ask me if I think I’m a good writer, I will answer no.
“But Amanda, didn’t you apply to a bunch of colleges for creative writing?”
Yep.
I was a clown, romanticizing a career in narrative design.
I enjoyed the *idea* of writing more than the actual practice of it.
Deep down, part of me knows I can write well. Over the years parents, teachers, friends, and peers have complimented my papers, stories, and posts. While the end results can be decent, the act of actually writing is a grueling, taxing process. I experience it in both creative work and academic work, but my love-hate relationship with this medium is the strongest during writing classes. I love being able to express and share my ideas, but trying to execute them is a struggle.
For the majority of my educational upbringing, it was all about the execution. In high school, I could only formulate ideas in probably the most restrictive way possible: formal, academic essays. I remember Standard English grammar being such a crucial part of my writing curriculum that I stressed more about sentence structure than the actual paper content. Needless to say, my work wasn’t that great.
But like any proper honors student, I based my self worth off of grades. Because my essays were bad, I wasn’t smart. Flawless logic, really.
Thankfully that mindset didn’t last forever, but threads of self doubt still linger behind.
Leading up to this WRIT150 class, I was filled with dread knowing I’d soon spend 15 weeks iterating through a strenuous academic writing process. Ratemyprofessor reviews painted a picture of an intense writing boot camp where we would write all the time, receive critical feedback, but ultimately evolve as writers. Geared up for the worst, I had accepted that this course would be the bane of my semester just like English classes of the past. While mentally prepared to examine the verb tense of my thesis statements, the first week of WRIT150 taught me an even more valuable writing lesson:
Standard English is dumb. It marginalizes everyone except wealthy white cis men, and nobody actually uses it outside of higher academic writing. You can use contractions, vernacular, and even slang. You can use your own voice to write about what matters to you.
Although it’s not the formal writing instruction I expected, this class did make me a better writer. My grammar and essay structure isn’t perfect, but I learned that adequate writing comes from strong ideas and strong communication — not just mastery of the English language. Stripping away most of the restrictive formal structures forced me to focus on refining core ideas and the best way to communicate them. Having such freedom is incredibly beneficial, but it puts me in a vulnerable position.
This semester, I couldn’t hide behind my writing’s structure and format. If the piece was bad, it actually meant my ideas needed work, not just the writing itself. That made my WRIT150 writing feel somewhat high stakes in my mind. I feared putting myself and my opinions out there to be judged.
My first few posts and WP1 reflect an experimentation process as I struggled to balance personal investment, passion, relevance, and organization in my writing. They were all over the place, where unrefined ideas manifested in vague rambles about language, academia, and games. After taking in feedback however, my writing began to improve.
Or at least I assumed it was improving.
By my sixth post I could see all this positive feedback, but I didn’t feel like a better writer. The writing process was just as laborious as before. Even worse, I constructed this obligation to make each post better — more spectacular and sophisticated — than the last. I convinced myself this was some huge charade. Each time my writing was praised, it only fed the pressure to continue pretending to be a scholarly writer.
After sharing these imposter syndrome grievances with my roommates, they offered a solid piece of insight. You can’t “play the role” of a skilled writer while consistently putting out proficient writing. And if the writing professor says your writing is excellent, they’re probably not lying.
That’s pretty sound logic. Enough to overtake “my essay is bad so I am stupid” I think.
Seeing how my work has evolved throughout the semester has helped me build self trust. The writing process becomes miserable when I’d get stuck, dwelling on creative blocks and worrying whether what I’m discussing is right. I took a bunch of writing risks that would never fly in the past, but now end up being some of my best work. Believing in my ideas and trusting their potential lead me to creating some awesome pieces.
This is my first post that started the “good work” trend. I had a hard time believing it was anything of value since it originated as an angry rant about progressive academics who try to take credit for reverse engineering art.
I knew it would be physically, mentally, and emotionally impossible to summarize my entire childhood in writing. At this point in the semester I felt more comfortable incorporating multimedia elements into writing, so much of my WP2 is an extension of this discussion with my parents. I’ve never even thought about using a recorded conversation as part of a written project, but the success of this proved my concepts are more valuable than academic professionalism.
After reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed, it became clear that I had to talk about Peter and his class. I’ve written other pieces regarding games, media, and education, but this one has the most personal investment. Publishing my writing online provided an actual audience, and I think this post is the prime example of how that allows me to thrive. While intimidating at first, writing for an audience combined my passion with a purpose. I got to share my work with the CTIN290 class as well, and I don’t think my traditional academic writing could ever have such an impact.
I’m far from boasting about my superb writing skills or claiming I’m some sort of communication connoisseur, but through this class I began to recognize that my written work has real value.
My voice is effective. My voice belongs in academia.
