Do You Have Doubts?

Ane Mulligan     @AneMulligan

An engineer doesn’t doubt her calling. She’s a left-brained mathematician with a formula for every situation.

A fisherman doesn’t doubt his calling. He’s a left-brained strategist who can outsmart any fish.

A company CFO doesn’t doubt her calling. She has left-brained-focus on the bottom line.

But creatives are dogged by doubts.

Is my work good enough? Will everyone hate it? Has the well run dry? Are all my ideas merely repeats of what I’ve already done? How did I do it last time? Am I really called to do this?

My name is Ane Mulligan, and I have another passion besides writing.

Oh, pick up your jaw. It’s not a secret to anyone who knows me. I’m managing director of a Community Theatre company. Theatre is in my blood just like stories are in my head, and both are in my heart.

A problem arises

The problem arises when one passion’s demands are louder than the other. It doesn’t matter what that passion is. It can be family, especially when our children are young. Softball, swarm soccer, parent-teacher conferences. Your day job. They pull at a writer. 

Then, you hit a wall in your current work in progress. Doubts raise their ugly heads. After all, a real writer doesn’t get writer’s block. A real writer can write through anything. Maybe you’re done. Is it time to quit? I’ve been plagued with all these and more in the years I’ve been writing.

During one particularly trying manuscript, we held auditions for a new show I was to direct. I was excited about it, and the busyness of planning and directing (and writing a few short bits to ease scenes transitions) stole my creativity and focus.

Doubt crept in once more. Is writing my will for me or God’s? I couldn’t imagine quitting Community Theatre. Is it truly time to quit writing? If so, then so be it.

Yet, I cringed at that thought. I didn’t want to quit either one. I prayed and decided I’d leave it at His feet.

I turned my attention to the theatre and all the shows for that year. I was producing one, directing one, and set-dresser on another, all while managing the non-profit business side. Maybe that’s enough for one person.

Then it happened. As my husband and I chatted about his upcoming choir concert, suddenly in the midst of that conversation, the one piece I hadn’t consciously realized I’d missed exploded in my mind, sparking creativity in a great, big, wonderful visual of motivation ... for my character and for me.

I love it when God shows up.

Creatives will always be plagued by doubts. That’s part of it. It’s built into our DNA. We can’t escape it. So, what do we do? Panic and down copious pots of coffee and six pounds of chocolate?

No. Well, yes to the coffee and chocolate. But learn to embrace the doubts. Take them to God. He’s big enough to handle them. Then wait. Don’t try to force anything. Wait.

Take a day trip. Grab your camera and go take photos somewhere peaceful. Read a book. Cook a new recipe. Go shopping.

In some part of your brain, you’re thinking about your work in progress.

So wait. Don’t stress God will show up. After all, you’re a writer ... called to write                                                                   

 Ane Mulligan has been a voracious reader ever since her mom instilled within her a love of reading at age three, escaping into worlds otherwise unknown. But when Ane saw PETER PAN on stage, she was struck with a fever from which she never recovered—stage fever. She submerged herself in drama through high school and college. One day, her two loves collided, and a bestselling, award-winning novelist emerged. She lives in Sugar Hill, GA, with her artist husband and a rascally Rottweiler. Find Ane on her website, Amazon Author page, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and The Write Conversation. 

What’s a Writer to Do?

Ane Mulligan    @AneMulligan

I had the location. I had the story. But the setting had a strange effect on my writing. The tale turned dark. I don’t write dark fiction. I write uplifting stories. Easy reads. I write about friendships. And I write with humor.


So how did the darkness seep in? Apparently, it was a combination of my knowledge of the characters’ backstory and the location. And I was stuck in a bog, unable to move forward. The story was kicking my derriere.


I finally came to the realization I wasn’t just on the wrong track, I was going in a direction my readers wouldn’t follow. Hold onto your hats, boys—I tossed out 30,000+ words. One mighty stroke of the delete key and it was gone.


Once I got past that hyperventilation-inducing event, the next thing I had to do was start over.

On Goose Island became On Sugar Hill.


I liked the original basic premise, the what-if of this story. I kept that, but I changed the setting. I moved it away from the low country, where superstition and drama flourish. I also changed the characters’ names. Names are important. Names produce images and feelings. If I kept the original ones, they would continue to evoke dark feelings. Only one remained, and that one I could change her personality without any problems.


Next, I had to give up the dark secret to a secondary character’s affliction. I liked the affliction, so I kept that, deciding that it simply was—a fact. I never give a reason for it. After all, the story opens in 1929. That character, a quirky aunt, was born in 1885. They didn’t have the medical knowledge to know the cause of many disorders, nor the expertise to fix them.


I began to write. I discovered the changes I made were the right ones. The characters revealed their stories to me, and I found some new threads to weave through. Was it easy now? No. Nothing worth reading is written easily. It takes brainstorming, rewriting, rethinking. It takes sweat and tears. And if you kick a cabinet in frustration, it even takes a little blood.


I have a research conundrum. My setting is Sugar Hill, Georgia. Sugar Hill was a militia district from the Late Unpleasantness. It was not a town or city. It didn’t incorporate until 1939. All official town history begins then. There’s not a lot written about it prior to that. I had to go to another nearby town, Buford, GA, that includes some of the early Sugar Hill history. But most of my research has been talking to long-time residents.


I have always written fictional towns for that very reason. I can place a building where I want it and no one can tell me it wasn’t there. This time, I can’t. In some cases, history isn’t clear about who owned a certain store at that time or what it was called. A book on Buford history has a long list of who bought the drug store when, but for some reason the years I’m looking at are missing.


After finding most of the people who were over the age of ten in 1929 and would remember the local history I need (like was there a general store within five miles) have passed away or are too ill to talk with me. And so, I’ve had to take literary license and mention it in my author’s note.


Sometimes you do what you gotta do.



In High Cotton, available for preorder now, releases August 3rd.

On Sugar Hill will release in 2021

By the Sweet Gum is in the storyboarding stages. 

Ane Mulligan has been a voracious reader ever since her mom instilled within her a love of reading at age three, escaping into worlds otherwise unknown. But when Ane saw PETER PAN on stage, she was struck with a fever from which she never recovered—stage fever. She submerged herself in drama through high school and college. One day, her two loves collided, and a bestselling, award-winning novelist emerged. She lives in Sugar Hill, GA, with her artist husband and a rascally Rottweiler. Find Ane on her website, Amazon Author page, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and The Write Conversation.