Wait… do I even belong here?

From the San Jose State University student paper—a starry-eyed younger me in 1997 speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Carol Shields during her book promotion tour for Larry’s Party.

~~In this post~~

How I met my agent and why I feel the need to apologize for it.
Goddamn Imposter Syndrome
Getting comfortable with discomfort

~~~

When I asked the late Carol Shields what one of the best pieces of advice she was given by a writer she admired, she answered with a snippet of wisdom that she learned from Anne Lamott: if you want to write a character based on someone you’re not fond of real life, just give the character a really small penis (if that person happens to own one, that is). The real-life person will remain forever silent on the matter. (If you’ve read Bird By Bird, which all writers should, then you’re probably already familiar with this tip.) Granted, schlongs were on the author’s mind, as the book she was promoting, Larry’s Party, famously has a chapter called “Larry’s Penis” that addresses male anxiety around that particular part of their anatomy.

Though it gave me a hearty chuckle, I can’t say that this advice was particularly helpful to me in my lifelong quest toward authorship.

Giving a big dick of a character a small penis didn’t teach me how to deal with things like Imposter Syndrome, general insecurity when interacting with other writers, or staying focused in the face of overwhelming odds against success, etc. So, what did I do? I stayed in school hoping to learn more. I stayed and stayed. And stayed. I have spent a total of 12 years in higher education (5 of which were at community college), and no, I don’t have a PhD. At the time, I was attending SJSU full-time while also working full-time as a technical writer, churning out user manuals in Silicon Valley for companies like Western Digital, National Semiconductor, and Motorola during the dot-com boom in the mid '90s.

It would take another twenty years for me to finally finish writing a book, and nearly thirty years for me to show my work to someone else. And where did I show someone? In a classroom setting, of course—the only setting I’d ever been comfortable with. Which led to the very unorthodox (and ridiculously fortunate) way I became agented. My incredible writing instructor, Jeanne De Vita, from the UCLA Extension course I’d enrolled in, became a literary agent with Martin-Newens Literary Management and offered to represent me.

Believe me, I fully understand how lucky I am. As a Gen-X female POC with clinical depression, extreme introversion, ADHD (before it was better understood), and generalized/social anxiety disorder who has ALWAYS had to work my ass off to find any modicum of success in life, my gratitude extends to the moon and beyond.

But I’ll tell you what, this amazing piece of good luck has only exacerbated my Imposter Syndrome.

After taking the extension course (and before I was given the offer of rep), I decided it was time to join a writing community, as daunting as that was to an introvert like me. If I were going to jump into the querying trenches, I didn’t want to be alone. I spent my entire life at it alone, and that’s probably why I never found the courage to ever share my work. So, I joined an incredibly supportive and talented online community of writers founded by Laini Taylor (whose books I was obsessing over at the time because they’re that good).

I wrote about 52 drafts of my query letter while I was still finishing the first draft of my latest manuscript. I finished that draft during Laini’s Blood Oath December challenge in 2025. So there I was, psyching myself up for the querying process. Getting my loins fully girded and what have you. Ready to dive into buckets of ice cream after every failure, as I’m wont to do. Whatever it took.

Anyway, you already know what happened. I got very lucky and pinch myself daily. Even though there are still many battles ahead of me when I go on sub to publishers, I still feel the need to apologize for the way I skipped ahead to where I’m at now. Because, at my ripe age, I know what it’s like to wait patiently in line. I adore the underdog misfit. I mean, I grew up with an autoimmune disease, rode the short bus to school, and was not only shy but totally weird about it, trying wayyyy too hard to fit in, making myself an almost irresistible target for bullies.

But, hey, I’m here now, and I’m not going to squander whatever opportunity the universe has seen fit to bestow upon me. I’m going to do this thing, and I’m going to do my best.

Am I going to kick Imposter Syndrome’s ass overnight? Hells no. It doesn’t really work that way. I’m going to do what an old therapist taught me to do—personify it. Make it a person, a monster, a toad, whatever, but make it something easy to envision. So, I’m inviting Imposter Syndrome, a.k.a. Impy, over for tea and a chat, tell him to get as comfortable with me as I’m determined to get with him.

And I’m going to give him a minuscule penis.