Doubt never leaves the persistent writer.
Always the questions come and linger painfully, tauntingly. Sometimes for hours, weeks, years, a lifetime.
They may suck the life out of one’s work, out of one’s existence, out of one’s joy and fulfilment in the act of creation.
Am I doing what I’m supposed to?
Is this any good?
Is there anything else I should be doing?
What if I simply quit?
Should I even care?
And on and on and on…
As experience teaches, doubt never leaves and is never fully overcome. It will never be; successes or victories will not silence doubts, nor will inaction and denial. New doubts–in many instances just old ones in different clothes–crop up everywhere and at any time on the writer’s journey.
And you learn to live with those questions and thorns, and to converse with and learn from them.
Sometimes they are real; and as such, when given serous and patient thought, will point you where you should go. But some of them are simply part of the journey of the creating artist. They are imaginary obstacles, false fears, illegitimate threats–but they are there, and they will be there, despite everything.
The artist and writer understands that, yet still presses forward.