Welcome back for the sixth day of Writober. If you’re just finding us, Welcome. It’s never too late to join in. Since the month started on a Tuesday, it’s a day short of a week, but I want to make Sundays our review day, and start the next universal fear on Mondays. It’s the last day we’ll be exploring the universal fear of Ego death: the loss of subjective self-identity. Today we’ll look back at everything we’ve explored so far and look at imposter syndrome. It may also be a good catch-up day. I look forward to seeing what prompts from the week inspired you.
Imposter syndrome is the persistent inability to believe that one’s success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one’s own efforts or skills. Not only do we fear failure, and success, once we achieve success we fear we don’t deserve it. Can’t we give ourselves a break? It all comes down to that mean inner-critic, the negative self-talk that convinces us we’re not good enough and never will be.
By looking back at this week’s fears, the aspects of the fear of ego death: embarrassment, shame, fear of failure, fear of success, and imposter syndrome have you gotten any closer to any of your core causes of these fears? What memories have come up for you that you may not have thought of since they happened?
Fighting Fear of the Blank Page: When we want to write, sometimes the blank page stares back like a judgemental enemy or a white-washed wall. But what if the page isn’t blank to start with?
Repeat one of this week’s techniques: Today’s a good day to try one of the techniques you didn’t try from this week, or think back through the techniques you’ve tried so far, was one of them really useful for you? Try it again. Have you found a technique that works for you? Or is the blank page not scary anymore? Either way, how wonderful.
*Quick Note about links in this post: I am an amazon associate, so most of the links in my post will take you to amazon products. If you buy from these links, I will make some pennies which will help me pay for this site and my creative endeavors.
OctPoWriMo
The challenge of OctPoWriMo is to write a poem every day in October. These tools and prompts are here to inform and inspire, but if you have a different poem in you, by all means get that poem down, and if you want to share it, please do.
Poetry Toolbox
These are quick exercises that I hope you’ll do every day. We will build on these exercises throughout the month.
- Word list: Write down the first ten words you think of when you think of fear or shame. Any words at all. Anything that comes to mind. Do any of the words sound like what they describe?(Inspired by Frances Mayes’ list of a hundred favorite words in The Discovery of Poetry)
I created this Excel Spreadsheet for you to use to collect and explore your fear words.
- Sensory Imagery: In your journal or a word processing file, fill in these lines as quickly as you can with something different from yesterday. You may want to revisit one or two in more detail if you’re inspired and have time.
I saw
I heard
I carried
I smelled
I followed
The crowded room
The slap of
I tasted
The heat of my cheeks
I witness
I touch
(Inspired by a week one exercise in the poetry chapter of The Portable MFA in Creative Writing)
Poetry Building
Onomatopoeia is the term for words that sound like what they describe. Fun words like bang, crash, boom, pow, bark, meow, cough, hiccup, hum, and splash. These words can be very useful for bringing the sense of sound into your writing, but be careful to choose words that keep with the tone of your writing and subject.
Example Poem
Today’s example poem, copied here for educational purposes from poets.org, is Fear of the Future by John Koethe. I chose this poem as a poem about imposter syndrome not an example of onomatopoeia as you will see.
Fear of the Future
In the end one simply withdraws From others and time, one's own time, Becoming an imaginary Everyman Inhabiting a few rooms, personifying The urge to tend one's garden, A character of no strong attachments Who made nothing happen, and to whom Nothing ever actually happened—a fictitious Man whose life was over from the start, Like a diary or a daybook whose poems And stories told the same story over And over again, or no story. The pictures And paintings hang crooked on the walls, The limbs beneath the sheets are frail and cold And morning is an exercise in memory Of a long failure, and of the years Mirrored in the face of the immaculate Child who can't believe he's old.
From Ninety-fifth Street. Copyright © 2009 by John Koethe.
In this poem, Koethe speaks of becoming imaginary. He uses the words “personifying,” “character,” and “fictitious.” As I read through the poem after presenting onomatopoeia, I tried to imagine where a sound word might fit and what it would be. How would you add onomatopoeia to this poem?
Today’s poem: Write a poem about imposter syndrome (fear of being an imposter). Use as many of the techniques from this week’s poetry building section of the posts as you can, including one or two instances of onomatopoeia.
Form: If you’re looking for more of a challenge, write a Bop poem arguing whether or not the speaker is an imposter.
Write your poem and post it to your site (blog/ website/ other), then post a link in the chat. You may also post your poem in the chat if you do not have a place to post it. If you are posting as “someone” or “anonymous,” please put your name at the end of the poem. Throughout the day, please check back when you can to read and encourage other poets, to learn from each other, and enjoy each other’s efforts.
Writober Flash Fiction
The Writober challenge is to write a flash fiction story each day in October. Because it’s October, I’ve always taken it as a Halloween/Horror story, but it doesn’t have to be. You can write whatever you want.
Today’s prompt: Write a story with a beginning, middle, and end with conflict that leads to change in less than a thousand words (no minimal word count) inspired by one of the images in the Ego death folder of the Writober 2024 Pinterest board. How is your character an imposter? Why is your character afraid of being an imposter? If you want to share, link to your story in the chat. Or you can share a quick blurb of what your story’s about.
NaNo Prep
Now that your MC and AC have met, your MC needs to re-evaluate how to reach his or her goal. Is your MC thinking it would be better to just give up and go home? Why can’t s/he? What is at stake? Does knowing there’s someone in the way raise the stakes? What skills, knowledge, and or abilities does your MC have that make him/her the person that has to beat the antagonist to the goal?
Halloween Photography Challenge
Take a photograph that depicts the feeling of being an imposter, or the fear of being an imposter and link to your photo in the chat.
Tunetober
How did it go? Did you create an eerie melody in a minor key? I hope so. This week’s challenge is to create a creepy harmony or counter-melody, and add it to last week’s melody. Have fun.
Sewtober
This week, start thinking about a costume. What’s the simplest thing you can make that will get you started? A rolled hem on a square of cotton and you’ve got a bandana; on a rectangle of chiffon, a scarf; on satin, an ascot. Cut a half-circle of fabric, stitch bias tape to the top, leaving enough on each side to tie, and you’ve got a cape.
Simplest costume piece to get your costume ideas churning. Go!
All of these prompts are here to inspire creative action. Don’t worry about being “off prompt.” Any new work you create after reading this post meets the challenge. I look forward to seeing and reading what you come up with. And please come back to see how these prompts inspire me as well.
Get Moving
Sunday may be a day of rest, but we don’t want to be sedentary. Those brain cells still need oxygen. Now that you’ve read all these prompts and ideas are sparking. It’s time to get the body moving. Some suggestions:
- A trip to the park to swing on the swings
- A walk with a friend
- A walk along a body of water
- An Epsom salt bath
This has been a great week! And Writober is just beginning. Don’t forget to come back and post a link your work in the comments.
Experience Writing 
🎨🍂🍁 We don’t need to avoid meaning to remember the present. We are the feeling and not the portrait. My poetry, my fiction and my photo.
I’d like to share a humorous anecdote from an Italian anthropologist that captures the bittersweet emotions often linked to autumn🍂 and subtly underscores the theme of feeling like an impostor. A mother asks her son, “How did I manage to make you so ugly?” He replies, “Have you ever looked in the mirror?”
Until next time, have a happy writing Tuesday! ✍️
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