How to Get Over the Terror of Putting Your Work Out There

Music instills an impostor syndrome in me that I've rarely experienced in writing. Here's what I've learned from playing in public that can help would-be writers, too.

jmkarmstrong

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Having assiduously avoided performing music in front of live audiences for about seven years, having said that I wanted to do so but then dawdling over rehearsal and song selection and research of local open mics, having put open mics on my calendar every week and then deleting them … I finally got up on a stage in front of a few dozen musicians, many of them very good, at a Bluegrass jam weekend. I had four women up there with me, a few of them professional-level musicians, but I was the lead singer, lead guitarist, and mastermind of this performance. They were following me.

I suddenly felt calm. My brain searched for reasons to be scared but found few. I played the opening riff to Britney Spears’ “Baby One More Time,” a song I had played hundreds of times alone in my living room. I knew it so well I’d probably have to work to screw it up, but you never know what can happen in front of a crowd.

As soon as the audience got it—we were doing a Bluegrass version of a Britney song—they cheered. I played, and stepped aside for solos from the fiddler and banjo player who were kind enough to play with me. We were an official hit, one of the performances posted online to represent the weekend. (You can see it in my Instagram post above.)

I have often struggled when people asked me about how to get over impostor syndrome in writing. I just never had enough impostor syndrome to stop me from getting my writing out there, and I don’t really know why. Just the deranged confidence of a first-born, I suppose. I started writing plays when I was about 8 and made my friends perform them in the garage, charging adults admission for watching. I actually pitched articles to Readers’ Digest starting at about 12, and didn’t much mind when I got form rejection letters. I worked for professional local newspapers as a teen, and then I was a daily newspaper reporter for the first five years of my career. I didn’t have time to worry about whether I was good enough while I cranked out multiple stories each day.

I’m convinced the key to a successful writing career is to just keep writing, keep pitching, without letting rejections weigh you down, and these early experiences helped me to survive once I got to New York City’s national magazines and major publishers. I am on my way to publishing my ninth book; I also have a lot of rejected book proposals and even a few novels on my computer. I just always kept going.

It wasn’t until I became an amateur musician venturing into performing that I understood the fear that many aspiring writers experience when it comes to sharing or trying to publish their work. I’m a competent rhythm guitarist and decent vocalist with enthusiasm, pretty good stage presence, and a binder full of pop music covers. There’s nothing particularly remarkable about me as a musician, so it’s hard for me to believe that sharing my music is worth something—nonetheless, I do have the urge to do so, to share it with others instead of staying in my living room playing through my repertoire over and over.

So I’ve tried to get out there. Here are a few lessons I’ve learned from playing in public that might apply to anxious writers wondering whether to share their words.

1. Set expectations low.

I started a band called No Ambition with two girlfriends when we were in our 30s. We were all beginners on our instruments—me on bass (and as the lead singer), and my bandmates on (a child-sized set of) drums and lead guitar. We called ourselves No Ambition to be clear about our intentions. We felt that 30-something women had just as much a right to being in a sucky band as teenage boys do. So we did very basic, very imperfect ‘90s covers. Dozens of friends came to our first show and cheered us on even though I shudder to think at how … unpolished we were. But we hadn’t promised anything more.

For writers, this could mean sharing a piece with a few friends with the explicit caveat that at this time, you’re only looking for encouragement—and practicing putting your imperfect work into the world.

2. Make a pact with others at your level.

Having a band gave me a huge shot of courage. In fact, I don’t remember second-guessing our decisions to perform, which we went on to do at open mics and occasional gigs we set up for ourselves at small dive bars. I felt bolder when I had friends with me, and we pushed each other to keep going.

You could, similarly, start a Substack with a few friends and hold each other accountable. In fact, I also have a Substack collective with four fellow professional pop culture writers, Ministry of Pop Culture, and it really does have a momentum that’s hard to maintain with solo projects. I’ve more than once compared it to being in a band.

3. Start your own thing.

The band eventually broke up, because, while we had no ambition as musicians, we had lots of ambition in our careers and we couldn’t sustain a practice schedule. So I went “solo,” which meant I needed a go-to outlet for performances on my own. After investigating some open mics in New York City, which were usually full of hungry, young singer-songwriters looking to get signed, I realized I’d do better starting my own open mic, where I set the tone and made the rules. I played first at every one, because playing first can suck for newcomers but also because that sent the message that mediocre versions of Britney Spears and Taylor Swift songs were welcome here. Later, I interviewed a former record producer-turned-neuroscientist for this newsletter, and she said one of the most encouraging things I’ve ever heard: “Many, many people are satisfied and happy being sung to and being played to. It may not be the Taylor Swift version of that song, but these guys are feeling like, it's a version just for me, just for me in this room right now. No one else has this version.”

The equivalent in writing could be starting your own solo Substack, which won’t have the bonus of the accountability of others but will be your showcase where you can do whatever you want.

Here I am in full pandemic chic: bright pink leggings!

4. Give yourself a challenge.

During the pandemic, I began posting videos of myself online playing songs. It began as a way to promote my book Pop Star Goddesses; every weekday during its release month, I would post a song by one of my goddesses. I got great feedback on social media, probably because everyone was bored at home all the time, but that’s fine. It encouraged me to keep up the consistency at a lesser rate after that month, posting one song per week every Monday until I basically ran out of songs. Even though it’s unlikely anyone would have noticed if I missed a week, I began to feel the weight of my accomplishment pushing me to continue. People even claimed to be sad when I posted my final Music Monday! Which was very nice of them!

You could do a similar thing with writing, posting a short piece every week on social media or on Substack. I kept up my schedule by putting it in my calendar and refusing to move it or skip it. I hadn’t thought it through much when I named it Music Monday, but putting the day of the week in the name stopped me from pushing it off throughout the week.

5. Make it a party.

I’ve recently been trying to ease back into public performance, and I’ve had a really hard time with it, as evidenced by my nerves at Bluegrass camp. Since then, I’ve started doing something that I love: hosting singalong jams at my house. I invite a bunch of friends, they bring instruments or just their voices, and we play and sing songs together. That’s it. Very low stakes, very high fun.

The writing equivalent might be to throw a reading party for writer friends, where everyone brings a short piece and reads it aloud.

What have you done to get yourself out there? Let me know!

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Though I will not be playing any music, I am co-hosting an event on May 15 in New York’s Hudson Valley, with my writing “band,” Ministry of Pop Culture! We’ll be sharing behind-the-scenes secrets from our many collective decades writing about entertainment at The Common Good bookstore in Ellenville, New York. Join us for our panel discussion, Turn Your Fandom Into a Writing Career.