Is doubt a normal part of the creative process or a sign something isn't working?
How should we navigate doubt whenever it creeps into ‘the messy middle’ of our creative projects, as well as the creative lives we’re building? Read on, then join this dialogue in the chat.
August Theme: The Creative Life
Big Question: How do we build a creative life that works for us?
Week 3: The Messy Middle
It’s mid-August already and I’m glad you’re able to join this dialogue, as we continue to explore how to build the creative lives we truly want.
Whether this is the first post you’ve read in this month’s series or the fourteenth, welcome to the conversation!
Last week, we explored how Striking the Right Balance with Quantifiable Creative Habits entails remembering the true purpose of the quantifiable habits we make and protecting our creative freedom as artists while figuring out the most authentic ways to forge our own unique creative paths, after asking ourselves: Should writers have quantifiable creative habits?
And the week before that, we kicked off the month by considering what it really means to intentionally design and nurture a lifestyle that includes the time and space that supports our writing and the creative lives we truly want while answering the question: Do writers need to protect creative time like an appointment?, which allowed us to unpack how to make space and time for our creative lives.
This week, we’re moving this conversation forward by focusing our attention on how to navigate ‘The Messy Middle’ whenever it arises in our creative work and lives, now that we have a better understanding of how to cultivate the habits we need, and make space for, the creative lives we truly want via our previous drafts, dialogues, and thoughtful book discussions.
Most of us know what being in ‘the messy middle’ of a project, or our creative lives, feels like.
Those moments when our first drafts no longer work, our exciting ideas become harder to execute than expected, and we begin to wonder whether the project we’re working on is worth finishing. Or if we should continue pursuing a creative lifestyle at all.
That place and time during our project, or creative life, when we realize we might have changed our minds, lost our creative momentum, discovered a different direction we need to go in, or are simply unsure of what we should or need to do next.
Most of us also know that those ‘messy middle’ moments are some of the hardest moments of our creative lives to overcome because of the crippling doubt that can set in whenever they arise, making us question everything we’re doing, why and how we’re doing what we’re doing, as well as ourselves and our creative abilities in general. Not to mention, how far those profound moments of doubt can set us back.
So this week, as we explore The Messy Middle, let’s pause and ask ourselves: Is the doubt we encounter during the ‘messy middle’ of a project, or our creative lives, something we should anticipate, something we should begin to understand as a ‘normal’ part of the creative process? Or is it a sign that something we’re doing isn’t working and that we need to make a change as soon as possible instead of charging ahead?
Please take a moment to consider today’s question and the different responses to it before participating in the poll below. Then let us know more about what you think in this month’s Dialoguers chat. As always, remember that there are no strict right or wrong answers, only those answers that will help us better understand how to navigate the messy middle whenever it appears in our creative lives.
Drafting this Dialogue: Doubts and The Messy Middle
Normal, every creator doubts.
This perspective views doubt as something inevitable, as something every creator will experience whenever they’re bringing something new into the world. Rather than being a sign of failure, uncertainty and doubt are understood as proof that a creator is pushing past their comfort zones into innovative, creative territory that’s worth exploring.
In fact, many creators might find that a certain level of doubt is necessary to creating anything worthwhile at all, and that they’re consistently pushing themselves past their own creative limits. Which means that they are eager to learn how to become comfortable being uncertain while they’re creating and excel at learning how to not only make peace with their uncertainties and doubts but utilize them to their creative and artistic advantage more often than not.
Here are some things creators with this perspective tend to keep top of mind:
Historically, the world’s most successful artists, authors, and innovators have documented intense periods of self-doubt during their greatest projects, as well as during some of the most prolific creative periods of their lives. (Sylvia Plath is a key example.) Which seems to indicate that experiencing intense self-doubt is normal and common for those who listen to their innate drive to create and make things, and can be a sign that things are actually going well.
Doubt often arises when one’s creative standards are higher than their current technical skills, which creates a gap between their creative vision and technical reality. However, this tension, when accompanied by a healthy level of doubt, can remain temporary and even be a positive indicator of creative potential and abilities when the creator is willing to do the work required to close the gap between their technical skill level and high artistic standards.
Creating anything requires you to expose your inner thoughts and feelings to others, making you feel exposed to external judgments that can feel risky and uncomfortable. And your brain can often translate this state of vulnerability as a threat, making you doubt yourself and your creative choices, even when it isn’t. So, in a way, doubt is a healthy (and sometimes automatic) defense mechanism, meant to protect you from potential rejection, even when the rejection isn’t real or all that life-threatening.
The human brain craves predictability, but creativity demands that you navigate chaos and solve unstructured puzzles and make up your own rules as you go more often than not. The mental discomfort of forging new neural pathways and exploring uncharted territory is easily misinterpreted as a sign that the work itself is bad, or that you aren’t good at being creative, making you experience doubt. But this friction between what you know and what you don’t is necessary to living a creative lifestyle.
To engage in further dialogue, ask:
Do you think experiencing doubt actually helps improve the final quality of a creative piece or approach?
How can a creator distinguish between healthy creative friction caused by their doubts and destructive self-sabotage?
At what specific stage of your project does doubt usually reach its peak? And why is knowing this helpful?
Do you find that sharing your work early reduces or increases your uncertainty and doubts?
Who is a famous creator whose public struggles with doubt inspire you to keep going?
What daily ritual or mindset shift helps you push through moments of creative paralysis and doubt?
A sign something needs changing.
This perspective treats doubt as a highly functional, intuitive warning system designed to protect creators from wasting time on a flawed premise or creative path. Instead of pushing past their uncomfortable feelings and forcing things that don’t feel right, creators who see doubt as a warning believe they should pause whenever they experience doubt, treating all forms of doubt as data that highlights specific mechanical or emotional errors in the projects they’re working on, or in the creative lives they’re building.
In fact, many creators who experience serious bouts of doubt will probably feel more comfortable abandoning a project or creative path that doesn’t seem right altogether, instead of charging ahead. They ultimately view doubt as a sign that they need to change something significant, rather than minor, in their creative project or lives.
Here are some things creators with this perspective tend to keep top of mind:
When a creator feels a sudden wave of doubt that’s fueled by boredom or resistance while working on a creative project, especially a creative writing project, it can indicate the scope, narrative, or structure they’re following has lost its momentum, signaling a genuine pacing issue they need to address as soon as possible. They understand this specific type of doubt as their intuition telling them to pause and regain perspective over their creative narrative, and might do things like cut any unnecessary fluff in their writing, or even speed up the action sequences or tighten the transitions in their narratives, etc.
Persistent doubt usually only surfaces when the foundational concept of a project lacks a clear, strong thesis or central thesis, or is built on a weak core idea that needs to be developed further. If you cannot explain the main point of a creative project simply, in other words, the doubt you might experience as a result is a healthy signal to pause, strip away unnecessary or extraneous elements, before taking the time to intentionally redefine the core purpose of your creative work or lifestyle.
Sometimes a creator feels doubt when they feel disconnected from their work because they’re unintentionally creating it for the wrong audience, or to please critics rather than themselves. And this friction can warn them that their current creative execution and goals are not aligned with their authentic voice or target audience. Or that they’re working on something that may not align with the type of creator they want to be.
When you experience creative burnout, your mental and physical energy reserves can become completely depleted, making your brain lose its capacity for objective judgment, allowing doubt to surface and take hold. While in this state, however, doubt is not a reflection of the quality of your work but rather a physical alarm telling you to rest and reset your creative aptitudes before continuing.
To engage in further dialogue, ask:
What is the exact gut feeling that tells you a project needs mechanical fixing or a new creative approach?
How long do you usually wait before deciding to pivot or rewrite a piece or completely start over?
Can you share an example of a time when listening to your doubts saved a project?
How do you separate a flawed project idea from just needing a temporary rest or minor reset?
What specific diagnostic questions do you ask yourself when a scene or creative approach feels wrong?
Do you find it harder to fix pacing issues or to redefine a weak core idea?
My Reflection and an Invitation to Join this Dialogue
I have a feeling that most creators are like me and fall somewhere in the middle of these perspectives, realizing that doubts are a natural part of the creative process and lives we want, while also accepting that they can sometimes take over and cause more harm than good. Because while we’d all like to think of ourselves as highly objective when encountering and weighing our doubts on any given day, we also know, and have experienced first-hand, the emotional toll those doubts can sometimes take on us.
So, I would like to spend the next couple days weighing both sides of this dialogue, as presented above, to then expand how we can practically accept our doubts (especially while we’re knee-deep in ‘the messy middle’ of a project) without ever allowing them to cripple our creativity and creative lives altogether.
As you consider the perspectives outlined above, notice which statements resonate most deeply with your own experience and current writing practice, in both positive and negative ways. You might find yourself identifying completely with one response but adjust your view once you’ve weighed all options together. Or you might find yourself agreeing with a perspective that falls somewhere in between the two presented.
Remember, the goal is not to determine the ‘right’ approach or response for everyone but to become more aware of the habits, beliefs, and rhythms that allow your own creativity to flourish so that you can build the creative life you truly want and were always meant to live. And that sharing those insights with one another via respectful and open-minded dialogue can help us all understand what works for us on an individual level a little better.
As we continue our exploration of The Messy Middle this week, I hope these responses and reflections spark meaningful dialogues in the Dialoguers chat.
I want to know what you think!
Please share any thoughts, questions, or observations you have about doubts and The Messy Middle in the Dialoguers chat or comments below. Some of what comes up in our conversation over the next couple days may be included in Thursday’s follow-up post, where we’ll explore this topic more deeply and continue to unpack how we can ensure we’re identifying and mitigating the doubts we encounter during the messy middle of our projects and creative lives.
I’m looking forward to hearing everyone’s perspectives in the chat!
Please don’t forget to like or share this post if you enjoyed it. Thank you!
Continue Exploring August’s Theme, The Creative Life
This Week: The Messy Middle
Writing Prompts for Navigating ‘The Messy Middle’
ICYM Week 2: Creative Habits
Writing Prompts for Building the Creative Habits You Want
Immersive Storytelling Mode and the ArXiv
Should writers have quantifiable creative habits?
Reading Notes: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
The Habits That Help Me and My Creative Life Most
Striking the Right Balance with Quantifiable Creative Habits
Popular Posts from Week 1: Making Space
A Day Alive in the Lakeside Library
How to Make Space and Time for Your Creative Life
The Creative Life as Play and Work
Consider going more in depth with this month’s theme with The Creative Life Writing Collection
Every prompt, draft, and dialogue begins a conversation, but some of those conversations deserve more of our time and attention.
If today’s post sparked an idea or practice you want to explore further, The Creative Life Writing Collection offers a guided month of prompts, craft exploration and techniques, reflection, and customized reading recommendations for writers who want to go deeper.
And if you want to explore past themes, paid subscribers also have access to the full archive, including previous writing prompts, discussions, and reading lists, as well as full access to the community chat and Daily Drafters Exclusives writing collections.
No one ever tells you bravery feels like fear - Teske
To live is to feel lost - J.O.Gasset