Jessie Mihalik has a degree in Computer Science and a love of all things geeky. A software engineer by trade, Jessie now writes full time from her home in Texas. When she’s not writing, she can be found playing co-op video games with her husband, trying out new board games, or reading books pulled from her overflowing bookshelves.
I was supposed to be taking today off, since Mr. M is off, but I have failed rather spectacularly at that, so here’s a tiny, non-spoilery snippet of my new romantic fantasy. If I’m working, at least it should be fun, right? :)
This is still rough draft, subject to change, etc, etc. Happy reading!
The first door I tried was locked tight, so I moved on until I found a door standing open. I peeked inside, and my breath caught—it was an enormous library, three stories tall and filled with heavy wooden bookcases holding what had to be thousands of books.
I’d heard rumors that the private royal library in Obrik held ten thousand books, but here was a treasure its equal. I tiptoed into the room, worried that my mere presence would somehow damage the irreplaceable tomes.
But once the awe wore off, I saw that this room, too, suffered from neglect. Some of the shelves were pristine—and I made note of which shelves the mage preferred—but most were dull with dust.
This, at least, was a problem I could solve, and I didn’t exactly have anything better to do while I waited for the mage’s mood to improve.
I was used to pitching in to help anywhere I could. Cleaning would be no hardship—assuming I could find supplies. And if I cleaned the library, then maybe the mage would be more likely to help me in return.
“I need cleaning supplies,” I murmured, unsure if the castle would understand. “A broom and mop and dusting cloths.”
Light glinted in the corner of my eye, and when I turned toward it, I found a small door, nearly hidden between two towering shelves. Inside the tiny closet I found a broom, and a mop, and dusting cloths.
Last week was our eighteenth wedding anniversary, and we celebrated with a trip to the beach for a long overdue vacation. The entire plan for the week was to sit on the beach, float in the ocean, and do absolutely nothing.
It was glorious.
The beach in Destin, FL is all white sand and warm, crystal clear water. It was our first trip to the area, and we didn’t really know what to expect, but Southwest had a direct flight and the price was okay-ish, so we went for it.
Our twelfth floor condo had a balcony with a great view of the Gulf, and the resort had a pool and hot tub for when walking the extra hundred feet to the beach was too much effort. Thanks to Idalia, the first couple of days were red-flag days, which means the surf is potentially dangerous, and I could definitely see that when compared to the later part of our trip when the waves were more ripples than real waves.
We spent the mornings in the water, then came inside for lunch and an afternoon nap, then headed back out for more ocean time in the late afternoon/early evening. I took a Kindle with a stack of library books on it, but I didn’t read a single book, other than the audiobook I listened to on the plane. I did, however, watch a ridiculous amount of HGTV, my go-to vacation channel.
HGTV always cracks me up, especially shows like House Hunters, because it’s usually a couple who are like butterfly catchers or basket weavers with inexplicable two million dollar budgets and wildly different requirements. I know the whole thing is staged for max drama, but I love it anyway.
This time, I found a new show, and I’ve now binged most of it. It’s called Farmhouse Fixer, and the host, Jon Knight, is that Jon Knight, which I didn’t realize until after we’d watched more than one episode and we finally caught the intro. He renovates old New England farmhouses, and seems to really, really love his job, then he jets off to perform with New Kids on the Block when it’s showtime. The whole show is adorable and very low-drama, which makes it perfect vacation fare.
Now I’m back in the real world, because I don’t have an extra few million dollars to buy my very own beach front house, and I’m pretty sure I don’t have any eccentric distant relatives who are going to die and leave me a mysterious fortune and/or beach house.
However, if you’re an old, eccentric billionaire who needs someone to leave your fortune to, you know where to find me!
This week, I’m continuing to edit the romantic fantasy. I made it a little over a third of the way through before vacation, so my plan is to re-read that portion to get back up to speed, then knock out the rest hopefully by the end of the month.
I’m sure every single person who is publishing adjacent, whether reader, author, or industry pro, has a sufficient number of tote bags, but did that stop me from ordering custom totes for my Buns & Roses table?
No, no it did not. 😂 Behold!
Turns out, they’ll let just anyone design and print custom totes, and this is a power I did not need to know existed, because CUSTOM! TOTES!! 😍 If you’d like one of these lovelies, there are still a few tickets left for my table.
I had a chat with my agent this morning about edits for the romantic fantasy. Overall, she loved it, but it needs some tweaks to make it even stronger (as all my drafts do), then we’ll take it out on submission and see if anyone is interested in buying it. Cross your fingers for me!
I’ll be in the editing cave for the foreseeable future, which means my current WIP—which was supposed to be a quick little short story and is instead 13k words and growing—will have to be put on hold for a bit. Or maybe I’ll try to stab it to death this week, but my brain is already in edit mode, so we’ll see what happens.
In fun news, Mr. M and I started playing Baldur’s Gate 3 last week, and then immediately spent all weekend in a gaming haze. We’re some ridiculous number of hours in and just finished the first act. The writing is incredibly good. Coming from Diablo IV, it’s just leagues better. (Sorry, Diablo, I love you, but we both know there was some questionable story telling in the second half.)
I’ve played D&D, and I know sort of top-level kinds of information, but I’m not exactly deep in the lore. So when the first weekend’s stats came out and Githyanki was the least-chosen character race, I decided to choose it for my kind, upstanding druid who loves everyone and just wants to stab bad guys in the face with a sword.
Hoo boy.
Apparently the Githyanki are kind of jerks. And by “kind of” I mean, definitely, absolutely are. But I’m being the change I want to see in the world!
Mr. M is playing a half-elf wizard who is tending toward the darker side of wizardry. He picked up a necromancy book, and I was like “we’re totally destroying that evil thing, right?” and he was like “oh yeah, for sure, let me just put in my pack, nothing to see here.”
I have a feeling that maybe the book wasn’t destroyed. 😂
I recently leveled up enough to turn into an owlbear, so now I can stab people in the face or smash them into itty bitty pieces with my giant claws. Best of both!
Are you playing? If so, tell me your about your character! Just please don’t spoil the story. :)
And finally, UK readers, if you were waiting for the paperback version of Capture the Sun, your wait is over! The book came out last week, so you can order it from your shop of choice. Happy reading!
I had a nice weekend at ArmadilloCon! I got to meet some authors I knew from social media, which is always lovely. I’m in decompress mode today, but one panel has been lingering with me, and that’s the one about imposter syndrome. It was a forty-five minute panel with six speakers, so I didn’t get to talk at any length about what imposter syndrome looks like for me and how I get around it, but I have a blog.
Mwahahaha.
If you’ve managed to go your whole life with a raft of confidence and no doubts, let me explain imposter syndrome: it’s the unfounded feeling that you’re not good enough, or knowledgeable enough, or smart enough to do something, and if you go ahead and do it anyway, then someone will immediately notice how terrible you are and expose you to the rest of the group as a fraud.
From this point onward, I’m going to be talking about my experience. Yours may be different! It probably is, but hopefully hearing about my experience and how I deal with it will be helpful or at least let you know you’re not alone. :)
For me, imposter syndrome is tied up with rejection sensitivity, gatekeeping, and having an excellent imagination.
I was put on the panel because I was complaining about feeling like an imposter while filling out the panel interest list. Speakers were supposed to go through and indicate which panels they’d like to do and were qualified to discuss.
That second part is what triggered my imposter syndrome, because am I qualified to talk about writing erotic scenes in SF/F? I mean, yeah, I do write those scenes, and readers seem to enjoy them, and I’ve written nine books, but there is probably someone better who could talk about it.
And that’s the problem. I compare myself to this imaginary “someone better” and always come up short, because the person in my imagination is perfect in every way, knowledgeable on every subject, and never, ever has doubts.
It’s the same reason my doctor had to change the pain scale, because when she asked it where ten was the worst pain I’d ever imagined, my pain always was like a four. Yeah, it hurt a lot, but not like being burned alive, eaten by a grizzly, and falling into a chipper shredder, combined. That would be a ten-worthy pain.
Having an active imagination can be both a blessing and a curse. :)
Another aspect is gatekeeping. Fandom has long had a gatekeeping issue—as does tech, let’s be clear—and I generally avoid situations where I’m going to have to “prove” myself: “Oh, you like Star Wars? I bet you can’t even name everyone on the Jedi High Council.”
You’re right, I can’t! I have to write down my own character names so I don’t forget them in the middle of a talk, and I spend hundreds of hours writing them. My goldfish brain flatly refuses to hold onto some types of information, which just feeds directly into my worry that maybe I am a fraud.
So how do I get past it? How do I put that book out there, or speak on that panel, or offer advice on the very thing that’s whispering maybe you’re not good enough?
Practice and perseverance.
I know you were probably hoping for a magical cure, but alas, if I had one, this post would be a whole lot shorter. :)
Unfortunately, overcoming imposter syndrome means doing things that are scary. It means putting yourself out there, for good or ill. Your brain doesn’t want to be scared or anxious, so it’ll tell you that it’s better to stay quiet, to take the easy path, to not take the risk.
Your brain is a damn liar.
So when it starts whispering its lies, try to look at things objectively, as difficult as that can be. If you truly can’t be objective, ask a trusted friend for advice. I know if I asked my BFF if I was qualified to be on a panel about writing better sex scenes in SFF, she would be like, of course, why is this even a question for you?
Writers tend to fall into imposter syndrome pretty easily, very possibly because we’re so good with empathy and imagination and worst-case scenarios. Are you writing a book and worried that it’s awful and you suck and everyone who said they liked it is lying to you? Welcome to being a writer! I’d say most of us struggle with those feelings, even people who are highly successful. Keep going, you’ve got this.
Did your book come out but it wasn’t an instant bestseller and now you’re worried that you’re a fraud? The vast majority of books aren’t bestsellers. It’ll be okay. Keep going and maybe your next book will be. Or your tenth, or twentieth. Or maybe you’ll have a very solid midlist career that will make tons of readers happy without ever writing a bestseller—but only if you keep going.
And imposter syndrome doesn’t go away with “success.” If anything, it can get worse, because the measure of success moves. At first, it’s just finishing the book. Then it’s getting an agent. Then a publishing deal. Then hitting a list, then hitting higher on the list. When the goal posts keep moving, it’s easy to fall into the thinking that you aren’t good enough.
You are good enough.
And don’t worry if you still feel like an imposter. You aren’t alone, and a little bit of imposter syndrome isn’t necessarily a bad thing. At least you won’t have to worry about being a pompous asshole. :)
I had several people come up after my panels this weekend and tell me how much they enjoyed my contributions. If I’d let imposter syndrome keep me at home, then those attendees would’ve missed out on my perspective, and that would’ve been a shame.
So keep going, keep doing those scary things, and it will get easier. Not easy, at least not for me, but easier. I’ll never measure up to that imaginary perfect person in my head, but I don’t have to. Even messy and imperfect and unable to remember the answer to a single gatekeeping question, I still have value to contribute.
Maybe the thing I say or do or write will be the thing that someone desperately needs right at that moment.
I’ll be attending ArmadilloCon in Austin this weekend (August 4-6), so if you’re in town, come hang out with me! Here’s a list of all the guests, since it seems like they haven’t quite gotten the full schedule up yet, but I’ll be on four panels plus a signing session!
I’ll be chatting with other SF/F/H folks about standalone series, how to avoid a bad sex award, my favorite books of the year, and fighting imposter syndrome. That last one is a delightful irony since I was complaining on Twitter about having imposter syndrome when I was filling out the panel interest survey, and the programming manager saw it and decided to intervene. Well played, sir, well played. 😂
Because my panels are so spread out, I’ll probably be spending a decent amount of time at the bar or crashing somewhere with a laptop when I’m not attending other panels.
If you see me sitting around and you’d like to say hello, please do!
I promise that even if it looks like I’m working, I will welcome the interruption since I’m there to chat with people—I’m just very introverted, and starting small talk is like scaling Mt. Everest. But once someone else starts the conversation, it’s much easier, so come save me from my awkwardness. :)
