Catherine Nash, a self-described "about-to-be-published" freelancer for CHOW, expressed that "I hate the feeling all writers get that we're talentless poseurs wasting our
time (and our editors'). I decided it would be therapeutic to muse about it." So she did. Read on about her experiences (if you have any feedback for Ms. Nash, please let me know and I can pass it on to her.) MBToolBox, by the way, welcomes your personal anecdotes and thoughts, whatever form they may take, so please don't be shy.

When I first decided to become a writer (by which I mean quitting my job and trying to wrestle a living from my craft), I went to the bookstore and emerged with arms full of books on writing. They would form an instruction manual to guide my transformation; I would ingest every pearl of wisdom offered up by Stephen King and Anne Lamott, I'd write down my bones (whatever that meant) and, in the end, emerge a writer.

On day one, I started working my way through the stack of books. One of the first lessons I learned was that writers hate to write. As a result, they devise all sorts of rules to make themselves do it. My friend Renee, who's taken a several writing classes, offered some advice. "You should set aside twenty minutes every morning and just write. It doesn't matter about what."

I pondered why writers write if they hate it so much and are unable to do it without locking themselves in a room. But I read on (blind to my own powers of procrastination) and left the mystery behind. Mine was not to question why, mine was to learn to write, and if I had to trick myself into doing it, so be it. After all, my first experience with writing, at age twelve, hadn't produced much.

That summer, I decided to write a book. I hauled my father's old typewriter from the downstairs closet and, huffing under the weight of the mechanical dinosaur and my ambition, took it upstairs and gave it a place of honor on my desk. There I happily typed away about a girl who was rich beyond my wildest dreams. The first chapter focused on the tragic death of her beloved father, a shopping spree with her best friend and a double date with a handsome and popular senior. After finishing the first chapter, I took a break. It lasted the rest of the summer.

The next two summers proceeded in much the same way. The stories never got much more sophisticated, and I didn't write fiction again until I was in my late twenties. After a few more aborted attempts, I realized my true calling was non-fiction and set off confidently to write some.

In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott draws writers as unstable neurotics who pee in their pants at the sight of an editor and rip up manuscript after manuscript, all the while wailing "I'M NO GOOD!" That wasn't me at all. Lacking that quality didn't make me feel disqualified; I sensed I had a leg up on all the rest and chalked it up to one writer's attribute I would do without. In retrospect, I see this thinking for what it was: smug and delusional.

To kick off my new writing life, I devised a routine. I'd wake up by 8:30 am and spend the first fifteen minutes writing. Eventually, I was sure, it would stretch to an hour or more. The first few days went well, but then it became difficult to identify topics. Had my seemingly bottomless pit of imagination and inspiration dried up so quickly? Was I suffering from writer's block already?

A quick flip through "Writing Down the Bones" turned up some exercises to get me back on track. I gave it an honest shot, describing my surroundings, but rather than finding epiphanies in the tired topic, I got bored. After choosing another exercise (something about describing the light coming in through the window) I gave up. What's the point of writing about something meaningless? To my pragmatic, unwriterly mind, it seemed a waste of time. I would find my own way, and my own topics.

I soon learned that, short of chaining myself to the computer, I wasn't going to get much done. Never a fan of daytime TV, I made myself a deal: Work all day, or whatever part of the day remained after obsessively checking email, showering, and making lunch, and I could watch Oprah. That's how 4 pm became quitting time. Even if I didn't write all day I convinced myself that sticking to my four o'clock routine was vital; it brought about order and helped train my body, sort of like managing jet lag. Oh, and I'd take all the holidays recognized by the US government. No sense creating my own sweatshop; soon enough I'd have real deadlines and breaks would be harder to come by.

Eventually I found my groove, thanks to a writing class. I had real assignments and topics I could sink my teeth into (literally: the class taught food writing.) I found solace - nay, pleasure - in writing to deadline. Every night I reported to my boyfriend how the piece was progressing. I agonized over a three-sentence head note (the blurb that introduces a recipe) and made him read each version until we were both satisfied with every word, their nuances fully plumbed, and the music of the piece played in our ears. After a few classes, I felt ready to enter the real world and pitch a story.

Luckily, I found a receptive audience on my first try. A new national food magazine was launching where I lived, and an email to the editor landed me an invitation to send in story ideas. I jumped at the chance, copying down brainstorms from scraps of paper and my ever-present notebook. I half-hoped that I'd be rejected - what did I know about writing a magazine article? - but my luck held and the editor accepted two of my ideas.

Something happened when I started to write. It wasn't the first time I'd been paid to write, but it was a magazine article, my own writing Mecca, and I wanted to be good at it more than I've ever wanted to be good at anything. After I'd written a few paragraphs (the assignment was 800 words) I sat back, disgusted. I rewrote them, and rewrote them again but nothing worked. Panic set in. I worked on the piece all afternoon until I finally realized the problem: My writing was lackluster on a good day, garbage on that particular afternoon, and I was a talentless hack who didn't stand a chance.

The wailing started soon after.

My boyfriend came home that night to find me staring at the computer; my usually sunny self had vanished and in its place sat an empty shell of a woman. No amount of cajoling could convince me that I'd be able to finish the piece, much less write something I wouldn't be ashamed of. He assured me that a good night's sleep was all I needed to get a fresh perspective. "Distance always helps," he soothed. "You'll feel better in the morning, wait and see."

In the morning, things were no better. I kept working but by the weekend, I was a wreck. The writing sucked. I sucked. Shortly after he asked me again how things were going, I started to cry.

"I have the active vocabulary of an eight year old who's been raised by wolves," I sobbed.

"I have no voice whatsoever, no point-of-view, nothing that makes my writing unique," I wept.

"I've lost whatever talent I may have had," I blubbered.

"I CAN'T WRITE AND I'LL NEVER BE A WRITER!" I dissolved in a hysterical heap on the kitchen's ugly linoleum floor, writhing in transcendental agony.

In the end, he talked me through it. He reminded me of several things I've written that I'm proud of, things that have made people laugh and cry (people besides my mom). We debated the difference between the personal essay I was accustomed to writing, where so much feeling goes into the writing and is wrung back out, and journalism, where the self and all accompanying emotion is kept at a distance. I bought a book to improve my vocabulary, and used him as a sounding board for strategies to fix the piece I was writing.

Slowly, I became human again. I realized that a livelihood based on creative endeavors is inherently full of questioning, insecurity and doubt, and that I'd have to learn to pick myself up off the kitchen floor and sit back down at the computer over and over again if I wanted to make this work. I read Bird by Bird again as a refresher and this time, I realized that I was reading it as a writer, neuroses and all.