I’m pretty sure I’m not the only author/artist who is regularly afflicted with “imposter syndrome”.

You know what I’m talking about: the sense that you’re a giant fake, the professional credentials you’ve managed to accumulate during the course of your career acquired more out of pure luck than any innate talent or aptitude.

And even when the evidence is overwhelming and through supreme exertion and force of will you’ve spent decades toiling at your craft, earning stellar reviews and plaudits, creating a body of work anyone in their right mind would be thrilled with, still there’s this inescapable sense that it’s all an illusion and sooner or later you’re going to be exposed as the poser and phony you really are.

With that in mind…

This past month I devoted ten days to assembling my first authoritative (though likely not definitive) bibliography, a comprehensive roster of not only my published writing, but also my forays into other media, every format I’ve employed as a means of creative expression.

Ladies and gentlemen, the end result of that exercise is an eighteen (18) page document, much of it single-spaced, a mind-boggling list of novels, short stories, poems, essays, visual art, music and films.

I spent hours in my basement, shifting plastic bins, trying to find the ones containing contributor copies of magazines and publications long gone and barely remembered, toting armloads upstairs to my office so I could check dates, establish some kind of chronological order.

But it’s finally done, the bins restored to their former state, my office navigable once more, unimpeded by teetering stacks of ’zines and anthologies dating back to the mid-1980s.

Except that nasty ol’ imposter syndrome won’t go away, won’t be dissuaded or appeased, despite everything I’ve just told you. Only now the tone is slightly altered: okay, you got lucky, discovered the small press scene when it was still vibrant and willing to publish your crazy shit. But what have you done lately? You’ve got all these projects on the go, but when are you actually going to finish one?

Etc., etc.

Sometimes this head of mine is a real war zone, accusations flying back and forth, attacks continuing without cease long into the night. The artistic life isn’t for the thin-skinned or those in need of constant approbation. Each day you’re faced with the same dilemma: how to create something out of thin air, something new and different, original and unprecedented.

The pressure is unbelievable, the rewards few and far between.

Even if you survive in this biz as long as I have, there are feelings of guilt, inadequacy and all the self-help books and positivity-spouting gurus in the world won’t change that.

To live you must create, yet the act of creation causes you enormous pain.

You pick up a pen, knowing what it will cost you, the toll it will take.

Not out of courage, more like defiance.

You might be an imposter but you’re no pale imitation.

Determined to shine even if first you must burn.