I have felt a serious case of imposter syndrome since writing my textbook, The Write Road. Why? I teach it every semester. I’ve taught it for ten years. Why do I feel like an imposter?

Writing has always come naturally to me. I’ve never needed to have someone explain what a good sentence looked like, why I start a new paragraph here, or how to stay in first-person point of view and make sure my verbs agree. It has all just been in my head somehow. Or maybe I have had those explanations—but they clicked right away. I didn’t have to labor over them.

I read constantly as a kid. Maybe I absorbed thousands of examples before I ever thought about the rules. I don’t really know. I just know that writing became instinct.

When I started teaching, though, I saw the same issues over and over again. I can literally give you a list of the most common problems I see in student writing. Every semester I tried new strategies to help my students become stronger writers. When something didn’t work, I backed up another step. Then another. Then another. Today, I begin with a simple question: What makes a good sentence?

Then, when I wrote the textbook, I realized something. I had to reverse-engineer what I know intuitively so I could teach it effectively. I have been feeling like an imposter because I go to teach a section from my own textbook, and I have to study and prepare myself. I have to make sure I understand why I’m doing what I’m doing. The cognitive dissonance was intense.

Until I realized the reverse-engineering thing.

I’ve never had to think consciously about writing. But some people do. So how can I help them do what comes naturally to me?

I have to slow it down. I have to stop every automatic decision and ask myself why I made it. Why does this paragraph work? Why is this explanation stronger than a summary? Why does this quote belong here? Why does this sentence feel awkward? I’m taking years of instinct (and glomming on to instruction easily) and unpacking them into steps someone else can actually learn.

So, I study. For now. Until every step of teaching writing becomes as natural to me as writing itself has always been.

I say this to myself: I am not an imposter. I am someone who took something that had become instinct and patiently (and sometimes not-so-patiently!) broke it back down into teachable pieces. Good writers often write by intuition. Good teachers learn to translate intuition into instruction.

Can I say that magic sentence again? Good teachers learn to translate intuition into instruction.

That’s the work I’m doing now.

I’m not pretending to know how to teach writing. I’m doing the difficult work of understanding my own expertise well enough to teach it responsibly.

Gosh that feels good to name!