Blank Pages

Or maybe it's just Imposter Syndrome

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I sometimes long for the days before I taught journalism, when I was simply working in it. I published a local music magazine in Hollywood, co-founded, wrote, and edited an internationally distributed entertainment magazine, penned a music column, and worked as a feature writer for a daily newspaper.

Back then, my biggest fear was spotting a typo after the ink had already dried.

Now, what unsettles me isn’t a printing error. It’s the very kind of feedback I’ve been confidently giving my college students for more than two decades.

I can’t decide if it’s the thousands of student’s journalistic pieces I’ve read and graded over the years teaching community college, or the hundreds of stories crafted by undergrads and graduate students at the university level that have made my own mind so tangled and self-critical that I struggle to write at all. It seems that the higher I climb, the more visible my fear of publishing becomes.

Maybe it’s that dreaded imposter syndrome my students always talk about. I never believed I had it until I found myself staring at a blank screen, suddenly afraid of being judged. Am I actually a good writer? I used to think I was. But even worse, will my students read my words and wonder why I’m the one teaching them?

Before the magazines, stories and columns, I wrote a blog about love and death and grief and the fragile beauty of being alive. I hit publish with reckless freedom, and if three people liked a post, I felt triumphant.

Maybe it isn’t the writing that scares me now. Maybe it’s everything that comes after. The pressure of publishing into the void. The self-promotion. The performance of it all. Social media. The critics. The haters.

It’s almost ironic. I owned a successful entertainment PR and booking agency while working in journalism. I pitched major music clients. I built brands. I secured coverage. Today, I teach that expertise to my students. They learn how to craft strong pitches, write strategic releases, and position clients and themselves with confidence.

But positioning myself? Stepping into my own spotlight instead of building it for everyone else? That’s the part that rattles me.

A student editor of the community college magazine I advised once asked me a question that still lingers on my sleepless nights: “When will you stop making all our dreams come true and start making your own?”

His words reflected everything back at me. I’d tell students about my projects, my ideas, my plans, but rarely made space to finish them.

The stories I wrote would sit like unfinished drafts, waiting quietly while everyone else’s work moved forward. I cheered them on. I told them not to be afraid to publish. I watched them get published, saw their work go out into the world, and celebrated as they landed internships and jobs. I felt, and still feel immense pride in their success.

But me? I became the cliché “wind beneath their wings” while delaying my own flight.

It takes a rare kind of courage to put your work into the world now, where something celebrated this week is dismissed the next yet somehow lives online forever. A byline doesn’t fade with yesterday’s paper anymore. It lingers. It waits. It invites judgment. And judgment always comes.

So here’s the truth. I can’t control the noise, the critics, or the fears in my head. But I can control this moment. Love me. Question me. Disagree with me.

Either way, I’m hitting publish.