This is a cleaned-up transcript of comments made by Ed Solomon during the Writers’ Guild Twitter Space on 20 March 2022.
I was out walking my dog as the Space was going on, and my phone ran out of battery and died about 30 seconds after Ed had started speaking.
I had no idea who he was, but what he was saying was so compelling I knew I had to go back and take notes.
Jill Metcalfe March 29, 2022
<aside> 🐦 Ed Solomon on Twitter.
Writer: NO SUDDEN MOVE, MEN IN BLACK, MOSAIC, IT'S GARRY SHANDLING'S SHOW, others. Co-writer: BILL&TED1,2,3, NYSM1,2, others. Prose: VANITY FAIR, THE NEW YORKER
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<aside> 🐦 Ken | The Writers Guild @respectmywrites hosts a Twitter Space every Sunday.
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Impostor syndrome never goes away, and I actually think there’s importance in maintaining a kind of tactical impostor syndrome at all times, meaning, how do you keep yourself just outside your comfort zone but within your wheelhouse so you’re always pushing yourself and always questioning your assumptions, and always ‘intaking’ as a beginner.
Try to keep a position of beginner’s mind at all times, because your skills will always be with you.
Try to keep yourself just outside your comfort zone but within your wheelhouse.
Just focus on the thing you're making, and make it as true to itself as you can.
There are two sides of the mountain.
The first side is: What are you writing about? What are you creating about? Who is the you that you're trying to manifest? That's a big and important part, and I feel like that is always inside you. It’s always about trying to home in on it, and get closer and closer to that.
But the way to do that is the same way you make a cabinet or a painting. You just focus on the thing you're making, and make it as true to itself as you can. And your voice comes through all that, and continues to evolve as you evolve as a person.
Whatever stage you are in your career, it's really difficult to manage your own relationship to the feedback you get. I really struggled with it for the first part of my career.
The key is getting your own ego out of it, and all of your own anxieties and emotional responses. Let yourself hear the feedback, and then go away into your own private self. Give yourself time, and then you can hear and assess what that feedback really means to you.
Your job is not to do the notes that they give you. Your job is to try to understand what was underneath that, and why someone was having a problem.
Your job is not to do the notes they give you. Your job is to try to understand [...] why someone was having a problem.
What are they not hearing? Take charge of that and make it your own.
And when I say there's two sides of the mountain, the other side of the mountain, with your voice, is how is it communicating to other people? So, that feedback is important to hear—not so that you can please them with your response, but rather so you can actually modulate [your voice]. How is my voice registering with that other person? What are they not hearing? Then you take charge of that and make it your own as you redo it. You have the agency to do it.
I'm not a very confident writer, and I've come to realize that, for me, confidence is important when selling your stuff—not bragging or showing off, but quiet confidence. Because, when you think about the people that really sell things to you, it's the people who know deep down inside that what they have is of value. They're not trying to sell too much, because that reveals insecurity.
When you think about the people that really sell things to you, it’s the people who know deep down inside that what they have is of value.
To me it’s much more important to have faith, as a creator, than confidence.
To me it's much more important to have faith, as a creator, than confidence. Faith that there's a reason I'm drawn to it, and if I stay with it long enough, something will manifest. If you just focus on what you’re making, and whether it’s the best iteration of itself, you'll know when it's done. And you won't have needed confidence.
There's a reason you're wanting to create something. It doesn't need confidence to come into the world, it just needs patience and time.
Anyone who wants to make something has a calling to connect with others. There's a reason you're wanting to create something. It doesn't need confidence to come into the world, it just needs patience and time.
It sometimes comes out quickly, and it sometimes takes forever, and you never know.
You need to get your ass in the chair, or go for a walk, or think. You need to actively engage. You need to set an intention: I want to make this, or I want to do this. And it sometimes comes out quickly, and it sometimes takes forever, and you never know.
To me, having too much confidence as a writer makes me question very little. It’s about trying to find the balance between confidence and insecurity—healthy insecurity. There's nothing wrong with being insecure about what you're making, because it's actually real. You're really in a vulnerable place. And when you're too confident, I don't think you're really questioning yourself. So that's why, for me, it's about finding that balance. You never get it correct; you’re always erring a little too confident or a little too insecure.
It’s about trying to find the balance between confidence and insecurity.
To me, there's a healthy insecurity and a healthy anxiety which is: is this as good as it needs to be? and, are these choices really the best? And then there's the unhealthy insecurity which is: you stupid idiot! You can't write, you don't know what you're doing, your parents were right about you, your roommate told you back in college that you fucking sucked, and he's right or she's right. There’s that voice, which I think is an unhealthy insecurity, and that insecurity is an equivalent indulgence to grandiosity. It’s an indulgence. So, how do you rid yourself of those neurotic indulgences and insecurities? Everyone is different. It’s all about managing your own self.
Unhealthy insecurity is an equivalent indulgence to grandiosity.