Imposter!
I talked quite a bit last time out about the things I’ve got coming up writing-wise over the next couple of months. Around the same time, I was also fielding a request from a reader about something I’d done years ago—a short story I wrote titled Wolf Bite, from a 2018 issue of Mystery Tribune.
That got me thinking a bit about my “professional” writing career to date—
Novels
The Far Empty (Big Bend Trilogy - G.P. Putnam’s Sons/PRH)
High White Sun (Big Bend Trilogy - G.P. Putnam’s Sons/PRH)
This Side of Night (Big Bend Trilogy - G.P. Putnam’s Sons/PRH )
Lost River (G.P. Putnam’s Sons/PRH)
The Flock (Thomas & Mercer)
Call the Dark (Thomas & Mercer) (finalist for ITW award!)
Short Stories
Wolf Bite (Mystery Tribune)
Paducah ’80 (Gather at the River Anthology)
Waw Kiwulik (Both Sides Anthology)
Screenplays or Adaptations
Feature Film Original – 20th Century Fox
Audio Pilot and Series Original – Hubcap Entertainment
A Sharper Dark TV Pilot Adaptation – Automatik/Endeavor
Feature Film Adaptation– WiP/Stampede
Since I was brought on to most of the above projects and they weren’t formally announced in the trades, and some might still be in development, I’ll keep ‘em anonymous for now…
Miniseries (as producer & writer)
Lawmen: Bass Reeves (Studio 101/Paramount+)
And also, like any good hard-working writer, there’s a “drawer” of as yet unpublished novels:
Taiga
A Sharper Dark (but as you can see above, it nearly became a TV series!)
Star Hill
13 Days
I put the word professional in quotes up above because as I’ve noted before, for years I didn’t really see myself as a professional writer; writing was just something I did for fun, a hobby, a side gig, since being a federal agent was my “real job.” That attitude made it easy to not take my writing too seriously, although I’ve been a serious, professionally published author since 2016, and professional screenwriter almost as long.
Now that’s all I am.
But still, I battle “imposter syndrome” like most of us in the creative arts, even if the concept’s become somewhat overused or watered down. I think many of us tell ourselves there’s some mythical “top of the mountain” that will finally—finally— validate the work we do as artists or creative professionals, but the hard truth is there is no summit, only another mountain.
Always another mountain.
Every new book or article or screenplay is a new peak to scale, with new expectations, challenges, and risks. Whenever we put our creative work out in the world, there’s a chance we’ll fail spectacularly…a chance we’ll fall.
None of us are totally safe, no matter how many times we’ve successfully made the climb before.
I just got word my current publisher is passing on The Black Light Club; a book they genuinely like (and I know they genuinely like me, as well), but that doesn’t fit for either of us at the moment. Like I put in a previous post, being a professional creative is living—or clinging tenaciously— where art meets commerce. The air is thin up here, the weather unpredictable; it’s dangerous. Books get passed on, screenplays get sent into turn around, all kinds of high-profile or beloved projects fizzle out for reasons both within our control and beyond it.
Always another mountain.
That’s why it’s so easy to feel like imposter, because there’s always another chance to fail, to be exposed. You’re always only hanging on by your fingers or a frayed rope.
One of my old partners from DEA showed up my July 4th barbecue and gifted me the following—
It was a gift wit the best of intentions, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, but also a none to subtle reminder to me that there’s nothing easy about what we do.
It’s always hard.
Always another mountain…
And as always, feel free to share—