“Sherlock fandom is intimidatingly talented. I’m not good enough to post anything in that fandom.”
I keep hearing and reading this sentiment. Everyone I know in person who’s gotten into Sherlock fandom at all has expressed some variation of it. I lurked for months because I felt the same way.
(I still do. Every time I post something to this fandom, I physically duck and cover for a second after hitting the Publish button just in case, I dunno, my computer explodes from the sheer amount of rejection that volleys back at me.)
Anyway, I read the “not good enough for this fandom” sentiment again this morning, and it reminded me of something that happened at WisCon last year. WisCon, for those who haven’t heard of it, is a Midwest feminist sci-fi convention. It’s a very critique-y con, where a typical panel goes, “Here’s a thing we love! Let’s pick apart where it succeeds and fails as a feminist text and learn from it as writers! Squee!” It’s a fantastic convention. But if you don’t have a PhD in space operas, it can be really intimidating sometimes.
Last year at WisCon, I attended a panel about Imposter Syndrome. The first half of the panel was panelists sharing their own thoughts and experiences about it, but for the second half, they said, “Please come up to the mic and share an experience where you felt inadequate. People listening, if you’ve ever felt that way, too, raise your hands.”
Reblogging this for all the artists and writers out there. <3
