Doubt is one of those things that never truly goes away, especially if you’re a writer. No matter how experienced you are at writing novels, plays, short stories, poetry, at some point during the creative process you’re going to hit a wall.

“Is this good enough?”

As I get closer and closer to the end of The Silver Ninja 2.0 rough draft, I can’t help but doubt my abilities in writing the most compelling superheroine novel of this year. This doubt has only been compounded by the fact that as of right now, The Silver Ninja on inkshares only has 8 pre-orders out of 1,000. Inkshares Preorder page

Other books have already hit the 100 mark and are climbing fast.

Do they have a bigger social media presence than I do or is the content on my page not good enough to warrant a preorder? Either way at the rate I’m going now there’s no way I’m going to make it into the Nerdist collection before September 30th. It is this realization that makes me doubt whether my book is good enough to reach a captive audience.

Granted, the samples currently posted online are rough drafts and don’t have the polish I’m aiming for in what will be the final manuscript. That being said, I still wish I could have had a stronger showing of my prose. The inherent problem with the Nerdist contest is that it came at a point where I knew the manuscript wasn’t ready. There are scenes I’m planning to axe and incomprehensible prose that will confuse anyone that’s not me. Basically the book is not ready to go.

I feel confident that I can release the book within this year but I know for certain that it cannot be finished before September 30th.

But it’s not just the contest that’s plaguing me with doubt. Recently, I completed another chapter where we find out more about Cindy’s backstory and how the mighty, athletic woman was born from a place of low self-esteem, weakness, and affliction.

The problem is, will the readers care? Will people actually want to read an entire chapter on how Cindy went from fat to bulimic to muscular? Will readers end up rolling their eyes and going, “JUST GET ON WITH IT ALREADY” and skim the chapter because it’s boring? I mean, I don’t write it to be boring but let’s be honest, at the end of the day this book is still about a superheroine and action.

But I’m of the philosophy that you shouldn’t have action for action’s sake. Movies like Transformers and Expendables put me to sleep in the theater because it’s constant action and no substance. If you don’t care for the characters you won’t care for the action and finding the perfect balance between fleshing out a character and having her kick ass is extremely difficult.

If you start a scene with the heroine beating up on criminals who are just hanging around in an abandoned warehouse. Where’s the fun in that?

Now if you started the scene with criminals going into a low-rent apartment building, shaking down elderly tenants, and then vandalizing their rooms. Then you WANT the heroine to show up and you WANT to see how she’s going to kick their ass.

Though I feel I have created moments where the action is justified, I’m not sure if the quieter moments leading up to the action are interesting enough. I don’t know, it could be that I’m having issues with my rough draft prose or it could be that some scenes are just not compelling enough. Whatever it is, I’m not happy with the result and it’s creating the theme of this blog which is doubt..

What’s also doubly frustrating is that at some point this year, some creators got a clue and realized that there needs to be more female protagonists in herodom. Now popular, well established writers are jumping in on the heroine bandwagon and here I am lagging behind! Man, is that jealousy rearing its ugly head? Sounds like it is.

That’s the power of doubt and it’s not something one can easily ignore. However, doubt isn’t exactly the worst thing in the world either. A little bit of doubt can encourage you to do better, to go back and refine until your project is close to perfection. The key is making sure it doesn’t take hold of you and force you to give up altogether.

As Thomas Mann once said, “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”

4 chapters to go.

Oh and P.S. My artist is scheduled to start work on the official cover for The Silver Ninja 2.0. I’m super excited to see how it’s going to turn out and can’t wait to share it with you.