The Horror of Having Nothing to Say
Words by Colleen McQuillen
I have absolutely always been a chatterbox. I think this paved the way for my love of storytelling from an early age, mainly due to my parents encouraging me to write things down just for a moment’s peace. This life-long passion for writing has led me to my Master’s degree at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, a journey that I started on a couple of weeks ago.
As we went around the room discussing our favourite authors and my fellow classmates’ creative works, many of which have supposed full blown 85,000 word novels just hanging around in their drafts, I started to feel incredibly out of my depth. It appeared that compared to most, I had absolutely nothing to show for my writing. Yes, the majority of the class are well into their 40s but that doesn’t mean my brain doesn’t continually tell me that I am behind in my achievements, despite the 20 odd years in age difference.
I recently became familiar with the term ‘Imposter Syndrome’, now a frequent phrase in my vocabulary and I feel comforted to know that my constant ‘What am I doing here?’ or ‘How did I even get here?’ thoughts now have an explanation. Wikipedia defines it as ‘a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud’ and if that didn’t sum up my entire existence I don’t know what will.
I suppose I have always had an element of self-doubt, namely when I was achieving parts in musicals that I didn’t think I could do and even just getting into university in the first place was a struggle to believe that I belonged there. I started to notice that it was a real issue when I was successful in landing my first ever full-time job after my first ever proper adult interview after graduating in 2019. I know that I knew what I was doing, that I loved working with my customers and my sickly-sweet phone voice worked wonders and yet I still couldn’t believe that I had landed the role. Even now as I shelf-stack at work part time to align with my studies, with an actual completed undergraduate degree and a Master’s pending, I’m confused as to how someone made a sober and conscious decision to hire me.
These ideas have meant that I am paralyzed with the fear of people reading my creative work. Something that I need to get over pretty quickly considering strangers are going to be workshopping one of my submitted short stories in class soon. Although I am rambling here, it seems a little easier to share my thoughts with you rather than my stories that were created by my actual brain that I had been immersed in for periods of time, for people to potentially turn around and say that they hate. That is the scariest process of all.
This crippling fear of rejection and critique, although is a necessary part of the growth as a writer I know, has led my brain to simply stop working. I have been writing stories constantly since I was about 6 and yet now, I deem things I have already created to be entirely inadequate and that I cannot possibly come up with new ideas. Not that I believe in writer’s block as I think you are always able to write something, but I am scared that everything that I write will end up being utter rubbish.
This being said, I am forcing myself to write every-day for at least ten minutes on the apparent recommendation of all good writers. So far, absolutely none of these ideas will see the light of day, hidden away in a notebook at the bottom of a drawer that I like the idea that my grandkids will find one day and be like ‘what on Earth was this woman on?!’ Much like this article may come across I suppose.
I hope that one day, my stomach won't be filled with butterflies and the tingling sensation on the back of my neck won’t occur at the thought of someone reading my creative ideas. I have always wanted to be well liked as a person and the thought that people won’t warm to me, or my work fills me with dread but I suppose I need to let go of the idea that everyone will as creativity is purely subjective.
Now I’m off to sit in a coffee shop to eavesdrop on people’s conversations and embellish their stories, so if you are alarmed by a lone girl frantically jotting stuff down in her notebook without taking her eyes off you, please do not be spooked as I am just trying to turn you into a bestseller.
I promise that although my face says I’m 15, I am a 24-year-old English Graduate from the University of Lincoln who recently began studying Creative Writing at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. I have a penchant for the theatre, anything with Flamingos on and Harry Styles. My life-long dreams involve writing as a full-time career, to play a dead body on the BBC’s ‘Silent Witness’ and to one day wake up from a night out without a hangover. You can find me on Instagram: @colleen_mcquillen
