You feel like a fraud calling yourself an artist
You make things — write, paint, create — but you feel like a fraud calling yourself an artist or a writer, as though you have not earned the title, are only pretending, will be exposed as not a real one. The fraud feeling keeps you from claiming your creative identity and undermines your confidence in the work you do.
I wrote the world's first novel in a court that would never have called me a writer, so I understand this hesitation to claim the name — and I will ease it. The title is not a credential you must earn first — artist and writer are simply names for what you do, conferred by no committee and awarded after no threshold; if you make art, you are an artist, so claim the name for the activity, not the achievement, for you have been waiting for permission no one is empowered to give. The fraud feeling visits real artists most of all — it is the serious, dedicated makers, holding themselves to real standards, who feel most like frauds, while the comfortable pretenders rarely do, so your fraud feeling is strange evidence of your genuineness, not your pretense. And let the work, not the title, be where you live — whether you call yourself an artist matters far less than whether you make the art, and in the work the fraud feeling dissolves. What do you make, that you hesitate to claim?
What changes unlock by starting
- You see the title names what you do, not a credential
- You claim the name for the activity itself
- You see the fraud feeling as evidence of genuineness
- You live in the work, not the anxious title