How often do you lose confidence in your story? (+poll!)

[thomassayle]

Every damn time I start working on it, It feels like its not worth the time and effort for a stupid joke or whatever. Which causes me to have large breaks in between.

[lwflouisa]

I lose confidence less from lack of ability, and more apparently inability to communicate my intentions. This has stonewalled my projects for years, because I was never sure if I was going to draw my stuff myself, or wait for someone to offer.

Specifically, I've had to write Deviantart off, because it seemed like one one hand: I keep deciding I'm going to resolve to pursue a project, sense I had no offers. Then all of a sudden I get an offer, and then they flake out.

I'd rather me left alone to learn the craft myself. What I mean is the emotional see sawing that happens in such arrangements, that feels increasingly unnecessary.

[KidJake]

To be honest, I never do. I know the base story is enjoyable and captivating; back when it was just a campaign journal I had numerous fans, constant feedback and even fan art of the characters. Every now and then I STILL see the story and characters referenced.

So I know that the story itself is fine.

I do however frequently feel like I'm mismanaging it. Like I'm failing to advertise the right way, like I'm not pitching it to the right audience, not personally engaging with my readers enough or that I just waited too long to make the conversion and that I might not ever get my momentum back.

[jcmraz]

When I stop to think about it. Happens maybe once or twice a month. Maybe a little less than that. I generally work myself methodically so I'm only thinking about the thing that's in front of me. So I can trick myself into having confidence in what I'm doing most of the time

[AmysGames]

I guess it depends? Some stories I'm pretty confident about most of the time, and only occasionally have doubts, but other stories I'm doubting constantly. I think a lot of it depends on how comfortable I am writing it, and/or what kind of feedback I get (or lack of feedback, as the case may be).

[keii4ii]

I voted every damn day, but that's not strictly true. It's just easier to count the good days than the bad.

I lose confidence in my delivery of the story everyday. [...] I have a lot of confidence in my story itself.

Yep, this. I have a beautiful, poignant story to tell, but I'm not convinced that I'm doing that story justice. (Though in my case, it's not about the quality of the drawings.) There are a few scenes that I think came out well, but that's out of many, many scenes.

To those who believe crippling self-doubt is a natural, inevitable part of being a creative... it's not. I'm a proof it's not. I was a happy, mentally healthy creator for YEARS. But if you DO have crippling mental health issues, and you ARE a creator, there's a very good chance that it will manifest through your creative side -- correlation, not causation kinda situation.

I didn't start flogging myself for being a "bad creator" until after I developed anxiety... from completely unrelated RL events. Even though I was always self-critical, it was all within healthy bounds -- because my mind was healthy. Like, yeah, sometimes I hated what I'd made, but it never made me hate myself. Then everything changed when fire nation attacked... err... when anxiety arrived.

[darkone4587]

I actually have low self-esteem so I lose confidence in basically everything at least once a day especially my own skills as a writer.
I can normally ignore it and push these feelings aside for sometime, but when it hits real bad all I can do is lay in the bed and sleep.

[Ajhaynes420]

Only real Writers lose confidence everyday lmao

[Iris-Grimoire]

It's not too healthy to normalize impostor syndrome. It's still going to happen at a regular basis? Yeah, but the more we work against it, the less we'll have 'haha everything I do sucks I'm not posting it' as the artist neglects to talk about their actually really nice work. Suffering starving artists are a cliche but don't have to be the standard.

[vldfromhell]

It depends on regularity of my work but due to i am too lazy and dont occupe enough time for comics it happens 98475976076767 times in a day haha :(((((((((((((((((((((((

[Jenny-Toons]

This. All of this.

I don't lose confident in my work. Like, I might want to improve it or reedit it, but I don't lose confident.

I have a story to tell, and dammit -- I'm gonna tell it. If a story's not going the way that I'd like it, I ask for feedback or I go back to the drawing board. Doesn't mean I've questioned my own abilities. I just acknowledge that I need to improve or - Hell - walk away from it for a bit.

I do that with a lot of my stories. Doesn't mean I've lost faith. Just means I need time for that particular story.

[Iris-Grimoire]

I'm not as strong, but like, once I'm out of the initial "upset because I'm upset" phase, I try to look back and see what I've done. It's not always easy, it might be a niche and even bad paced story, but it's my special thing and I'm not at the point I want to stop just yet. It's important to not get too washed away by when the confidence dips, even if anxiety or stress keep you from preventing it entirely.

[ble]

In the past, very often.

Not anymore....since i quit making comics.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

It's not too healthy to normalize impostor syndrome.

I may be splitting hairs here, but is being insecure, even on a regular (unhealthy) basis, really equivalent to having impostor syndrome?

I always understood that as being at the point where you doubt even your concrete, externally-validated accomplishments...like being a Nobel Prize winner who feels like you don't belong at a conference about your area of study. Like, where it's patently obvious that you're qualified and worthy, but you can't help but deny it to yourself.

Most of us only have ourselves to go by, tbh. Ten years from now, half of us will probably look at these stories we're so passionate about and admit that they weren't actually any good. =/ Even those of us who are being validated right now may do the same thing...things get really fuzzy when it comes to art...

[ValKree]

~Right after my novels are updated. There's always the fear that I need to change some things to make readers happier or I always feel I could do a lot better.
~When I see a reader criticizing how I built my character. I give them flaws for a reason and while I want them to be relatable, they are being called over the top? (Thankfully, that hasn't happened here yet)
~When my parents tell me writing stories would be wasting my time and that I will realize this when I'm older. I write to waste time though...
~When someone says I'm trying to shove my beliefs down their throats by having diverse characters, writing strange rituals and anything that is rarely seen or explored in literature. I write about racist characters, homosexuals, women who are happy being wives, women who are happy living as a free soul, and men who cry once in a while (but too much, apparently). I'm always wondering if I should sugar coat some things.
~I spend time to research, plan and test my novels' characters, setting and themes. Then, someone has to come along and say I could do better by blah blah blah. I should write like someone or I should put more scenes about something. Sure, I like criticism but attacking my writing style is a big nono because I write how I feel comfortable. Being told to change themes really hurts because each novel explores more than one theme at a time. Sometimes, I start believing that I should change my novel to make others enjoy reading it as I enjoy writing it.

Art is a different story...

[oshirockingham]

I voted once a week.
I'm more into losing the will to continue working on episodes than losing the confidence since I already made the rough scripts and some storyboards to the ending of the story.
Every time I see my newest episode only got a few feedback and a few likes, I always having thoughts of taking a hiatus.

[Iris-Grimoire]

If you're being insecure regularly, that's basically it. It stops being 'hey it sucks now but I'll improve' (which happens to everyone), it's actively undermining your own progress with the belief that you're just deluding yourself or others on how enjoyable it is. That idea of being obvious of sucess is just like believing only well-off people have certain disorders... If affects everyone, it's just seen differently. Doesn't matter if the audience you're "fooling" is 10 or 10k people, you're believing anyway that you don't deserve it and that's what's important to be wary of if exaggerated.

You like it, other people like it, and denying that is erasing that they've definately saw something in it; it's different than having real technical problems with your work that you know you want to fix and can't/don't want to at the moment. Like I gave in my personal example, I get a review that talks about the complicated dialogue and that's a real hard problem that it has that I'm trying to figure out - that's the reasonable part - and that leads into a slope where I think that the reviews are just being easy on me and surely I'll be losing all my subs once they figure out how weird this story is - that's the unreasonable part.

[lwflouisa]

They key thing I seem to be finding to overcome it: make sure you have your entire story written before starting to do the art portion. Remove yourself from toxic and distracting environments. This is more important if you have ADHD I guess. Prepare a bunch of illustrations ahead of time. And also remember who your audience is, and focus on their needs. Not critics that dislike your comic who aren't your core audience.

I'm not going to lie and say self-doubt isn't present, it never really goes away. But it helps at least remembering who the crucial readers are.

And yes, all toxic environments. Political Youtube and Snet are my main distractions these days.

[ZatchZ]

Where's the never option?

[Karmillina]

I lose confidence in my work.... often enough to be a nuisance.