I’ve been thinking a lot about confidence lately. Unlike the marvelous Julie Andrews who sings the song from Sound of Music that this entry draws its title from, I do not have confidence. Or, rather, I’ve had trouble maintaining confidence personally and professionally for the last few years. 

Personally, it started at the end of 2022 when I began my journey of medication and therapy. That process knocked down the walls and other barriers I put up to protect myself emotionally and mentally, but almost immediately people started telling me they missed the confident and forceful personality I’d previously had rather than the quiet, emotional, and softer person I was trying to be. That was hard to hear because I always viewed my previous self as a pretty big asshole. So I started doubting myself and wondering who I really was. I also found out that people very close to me who should have been protecting me and encouraging me and supporting me and nurturing my mental health and loving me completely had been doing the exact opposite. 

Professionally, it started in 2016 when the third book in my Dominick Prince trilogy was rejected by the publisher because it wasn’t good enough. I’d been so swamped with high-paying editorial work that I was never able to justify taking the time away from that work to work on my third contracted book. So less that two years after seeing one of my life’s biggest dreams come true I was marked a failure and I assumed my career was over as quickly as it began. 

My career wasn’t over though. A revised version of the third Dominick book found a home with a smaller publisher, and in 2020 I was offered the chance to co-write the Teddy Fay series with Stuart Woods. Once again though, the realities of life intruded and instead of being able to focus my attention fully on that project and it’s incredibly tight and demanding timelines, I had to keep a day job for most of the project. The first book needed a pretty substantial revision and still came out to absolutely terrible reviews, and the second book was canceled halfway through because it wasn’t good enough. 

So while most authors can go their entire careers without having a book rejected by a publisher, I’d had TWO rejected in the space of five years. My confidence and interest in writing was absolutely blown to shit and I didn’t write a single thing again for almost two years. Eventually I picked back up work on a book I’d been working on for almost six years by that point and was miserable writing it because it was a dark book full of miserable people doing miserable things and I had no interest in spending my time on that. 

Once the meds and therapy started kicking in, I could see that what I really needed to do was get back to writing the kind of funny and lighter books that only I could be writing instead of trying to be some kind of dark literary figure of importance. But even knowing this was exactly the book I was meant to be writing, I kept succumbing to a nasty case of imposter syndrome and feeling like I was sitting at the crime fiction kids table instead of at the adult table where the “serious work”was being done. Of course that’s all bullshit, but neurodivergent brains can be real assholes and very good at convincing you you’re a failure. 

Personally, things didn’t get much better. The shitty people kept doing shitty things and blaming me and my therapist went from helper and advocate to being one of the shitty people. Then my meds stopped working for the third time in less than three years. Needless to say I cried a lot and threw up a lot and wanted to give up on everything a lot. But things are looking up. 

The personal problems have stabilized and at least I’m not being actively harmed by people who should know better. Professionally, I’ve conquered this version of Imposter Syndrome and have a pretty good handle on what I bring to the genre and what my short term and long term goals are to get my career back on track. I have a level of confidence in my talent and the potential of this book that I haven’t had in a very long time. A big part of that came from getting back to reading good books across a wide variety of genres and formats and visiting my crime fiction people in person. There is nothing that can substitute for a couple of nights staying up late talking about books and music and TV and throwing out hot takes you’re forced to defend with people you love and respect. 

I’ve also found a new therapist that is great and has me on an active treatment plan working intentionally and deliberately toward tangible short and long term goals. And we’ve finally given up on the non-stimulant ADHD medicine experiment and my psychiatrist is bringing in the big guns. I have a prescription for Vyvanse that I’m hoping will kick my brain out of neutral and back into drive. 

I wish I had some advice or life hacks to offer here that would make everything better and help you avoid the troubles I’ve had, but unfortunately that isn’t reality. What I’m hoping I accomplish by talking about this stuff openly and honestly is to show other folks like me that you’re not a alone and to find my own level of accountability with my readers. I’m just trying to be a good person and a good writer and I hope you continue to follow along on this very messy journey and find something in my chaos that can make your chaos a little easier to handle.