Only 5 more days

From What Hides in The Dark charity Anthology publication.

Hi there,

We are 5 days away from What Hides in The Dark charity Anthology publication.

I am excited for everyone to read my short story Marked by Darkness.

A little about the process…

For a long time I’ve written for myself, for the love of the process. To be honest, I don’t do well with self-imposed deadlines. Now, tell me I need to deliver this thing to this person on this day, and I am on it.

Marked by Darkness, was sitting in my draft folder in one of my Obsidian Vaults for about a year. I had already poured a lot into it, and I wasn’t sure if I could give it the love and attention that it deserved. When the call for the anthology submission happened back in the Spring, I knew I wanted to refine the story and submit it.

Before I got the acceptance email. I had been working here and there or on it to make sure I was going to hit the word count. When I finally got the acceptance email, I had to look at it multiple times because I could not believe that I was being selected to participate, I’ve never published anything before, so I felt like a gamble.

I went back to the story because there was something about it that was bugging me. Many things, actually.

As I got to work, I realized I was using the wrong POV. It was first person and the dark, moody, mysterious vibe I was going for could not be achieved in that POV. I got to work to switch it, once the story was laid out in third person, the rest of the missing words just flowed, until I got impostor syndrome and started questioning the whole thing.

I was reading a horror novel, it hit some of the sensory elements I wanted to include in my story. As I kept reading, I entered a comparison game.

I let myself spiral for time.

I identified why I was spiraling.

Ultimately, my approach was to acknowledge the feelings, then I made the observation that this author has a whole backlog of books.

That’s when I reframed and asked myself: What can I learn from this author? What are some of the elements of their book that feel what I want my readers to feel? How do they achieve that?

All that to say that sometimes having a little impostor syndrome isn’t a bad thing. When we fall into the pit of despair without considering the opportunity that impostor syndrome can be.

Have a little faith in yourself, have a little doubt it’s all good if you can get yourself out.

Thank you for reading, until next time!

L.E. Guerrero