Imposter Syndrome. A bad case.

Yep, it's true. It's mine and it's sitting on top of a cupboard right now, looking at me with its little pointy edges. Fantasy Romantic Novel Winner it says. I won it for this one...

...which, should you wish not to miss out, is available to purchase right now from Amazon.

Go on, it's fine, I'll wait.

And I am still pinching myself. Still saying 'but how can I have won an award? I'm me...' almost as though the panels of readers and Those Who Know who arrange these things are not allowed to like my books because I am a person who mostly wears wellingtons and works in the Co Op.

It's Imposter Syndrome of course. The fear that, actually, we have no idea what we are doing, are just muddling through, desperately flinging words at a page and hoping against hope that nobody will sit up one day and say 'hang on, none of these words make any sense at all! Plus this book smells slightly of mud and is clearly written by someone whose main task in life is to make sure that the confectionary shelf in the local shop is really really tidy.'

Apparently lots of writers have it. Imposter syndrome I mean, not the urge to keep the Dairy Milk from invading the world. Many of us believe that we don't deserve any success, that we are really rubbish at what we do and it's simply some kind of magical glamour field that is keeping everyone else from realising this. I think I might be unique in also suffering from Imposter Syndrome in my day job, where I am convinced that I am operating a till simply by pressing random buttons and it's only through the goodness of the heart of those higher up in the Co Op network that I am still employed at all. But why? This is my fourth award, for goodness' sake! People somewhere are enjoying what I write enough to shove the books to the top of the voting list (unless they are purely giving me awards out of sympathy, which I hope isn't the case). A shelf full of similiarly pointy stars testifies to this, and also, incidentally, means that I have some fairly life-threatening dusting to do whenever I have visitors. So why, on earth, do I daily feel that I am no good at this 'writing' thing and should spend my downtime doing something more profitable and that I am better at, although at this point my mind realises that I am not any good at anything else and I go and stand and stare at the pond for an hour or so.

Is it a female thing? Is it to do with 'not showing off'? Not wanting to boast?

Or are all humans basically fumbling their way through life pretending to know what they are doing, and in a minute-by-minute state of fear that someone is going to say 'Hang on a minute...'