Every writer I know has felt it. The conviction that you don't belong. That the things you've written are fraudulent, or lucky, or about to be found out. That the real writers, the ones who deserve to be here, will see through you any moment.
Imposter syndrome is common enough that people treat it like a diagnosis, something to overcome, cure, or learn to live with.
I think that framing misses the point.
When the feeling is useful
Some of what gets called imposter syndrome is just your conscience doing its job.
If you've never finished anything, you probably shouldn't feel entirely confident yet. If you're telling people you're a novelist while quietly not writing, the discomfort isn't irrational. If you're claiming expertise you don't have, the fear of exposure is proportionate.
In those cases, the feeling isn't a bug. It's telling you to write more, finish things, and build a track record that earns the confidence. Acting on it is more useful than trying to talk yourself out of it.
This cuts against the usual advice, which is to reassure writers that they belong exactly as they are. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't, and the kindest thing is to say so. I could write a whole book on weaponising the platinum rule...
When it isn't
There's another version that sticks around even after you've earned your place. You've finished books. You've been published. People who know what they're talking about have said kind things about the work. And you still feel like a fraud.
That version is just anxiety. It isn't useful, and it isn't accurate.
It usually shows up as comparing your private process to everyone else's public results. You see a writer producing books, collecting praise, giving interviews, and you measure that against your own messy insides: the uncertainty, the bad days, the pages that won't come. The comparison is unfair because you're not comparing like with like.
Every writer's process is messy. You just can't see theirs.
What helps
Keep writing. Keep editing. Finish things. Completed work is the only real antidote. Each finished piece is evidence that you can do this. It doesn't need to be good. It needs to be done.
Stop comparing your anxiety to other writer's achievements. Those you admire from a distance will seem impossibly accomplished. The ones at roughly your stage, who share their doubts freely, will seem reassuringly human. Find those people.
And remember the silly shirt. Robert Rankin's advice wasn't "feel like a writer." It was "tell people you are a writer." The identity comes before the confidence. Claim it anyway. Act like it anyway. The feeling follows the behaviour, not the other way round.
What I do with it
I still feel it. After writing courses, after publication, after Jo Fletcher agreed to edit my novel. There's still a voice that says any moment now they'll realise.
I've stopped trying to silence it. I notice it, recognise it for what it is, and write anyway.
As I mentioned in The gap, if you're still learning (which you should be) and your finger is on the pulse of the changing world around you, you'll always feel like you're never quite there. Use that feeling to drive yourself forwards, not as an excuse to pull back.
The Silly Shirt Manifesto starts here, with the question of who gets to call themselves a writer and what it actually takes to become one.