Women writers, are you ready to grab the key to the literary kingdom?

It’s BELIEVING IN YOURSELF AND YOUR WORK.

It’s not rocket science really as we all know that having faith makes life so much easier across all areas, but I think it’s a particularly hard task for women.

I saw a T-shirt recently saying, ‘HAVE THE CONFIDENCE OF A MEDIOCRE WHITE GUY’ and it did make me laugh! Then I saw this fab image above by the feminist artist, Ashley Lukashevsky.

The fact is, after working with hundreds of authors, I’ve noticed that most male writers have way more confidence than their female peers, no matter what their level of talent or past success.

In fact, I’ve sometimes talked about the bell curve I’ve seen with writers whereby the most gifted are the least confident, but this is especially true with women.

I now believe that this is due to the many ways patriarchy undercuts our faith in ourselves across the board.

From criticising our looks (we’re too fat/too thin/too tall/too small) to our intellect (the number of times people think I cannot be a doctor because I’m glam – you can only be pretty or clever, not both, as Naomi Wolf’s work on the Beauty Myth attests!) to being underpaid or overworked due to the sexism of our economy and way women take on the extra burdens of housework and childcare to the impact of larger traumas, such as sexual and domestic abuse, our male-dominated society works to make women feel less than.

It’s no wonder then that we struggle to trust in our talents when we write.

And this can lead to writer’s block, procrastination, obsessively over-editing, not completing projects, not submitting, giving up when we’re rejected and not promoting our work effectively when it is published.

Apparently, 97% of books are never finished and that statistic breaks my heart as I know that so many amazing novels, memoirs and non-fiction books by women will never see the light of day and I want more for those female authors and us as their readers who desperately need their stories and wisdom.

Of course, there are practical issues which also get in the way of women writing, but I do feel patriarchy has done such a number on us that we often cannot even see our brilliance, let alone feel strong enough to use our voices and dare to become visible.

I’ve written about playing big and other issues in some of the Inspiration Library materials and I hope you find that useful, but today I just want to remind you that …

YOU GOT THIS.

You absolutely can write this book and get published and change the world with your words.

We need you to have faith in yourself now and give us the gift of your writing.

So do us a favour and claim the confidence of a mediocre white male author! 😉

And, of course, I’m here to help any way I can – you can get 25% off all feminist writing coaching with me if you book before 30th November – so if you’ve got a project you’d like my support to start, complete or sell the heck out of, you can book a free Literary Sister Book Chat. It’s basically a half hour pep talk and I know we all need those from time to time!

Let’s get your confidence way UP and push patriarchy from the page together!