Are you living the dream as a writer, or have you got a little lost along the way?
Remember all the long years that you yearned to become a writer, and you envisioned what that would feel like? I wonder: is the reality everything you hoped it would be? Or have you slipped into feeling unhappy for any (or many) of the following reasons:
- You just can’t stop rewriting and editing your book or story or poem in the pursuit of perfection.
- Sharing your writing has proved way too scary; what if people criticise it?
- You’ve entered some writing comps and ‘failed’ to win.
- You’ve tried to find an agent/publisher and ‘failed’ to do so.
- You’ve been trying to write for a market and now it doesn’t feel like ‘you’ writing.
- You’ve self-published your book and haven’t much enjoyed the experience.
- You’ve published your book traditionally and haven’t much enjoyed the experience.
- You’re disappointed with sales and/or reviews of your book.
- You’re disappointed with the results of your marketing efforts (e.g. number of followers on social media).
- Marketing requires skills, know-how, energy and funds that are sorely lacking.
- The thought of writing another book, story, poem feels… heavy. Hard work. A bit depressing.
I’ve been there. I reached a point where writing felt Too Much because of all the ‘shoulds’ I was imposing on myself. Numbers 1 and 2 were challenging for me, draining the joy out of writing… and then the words stopped flowing so easily.
I know many other writers who’ve been there too, writers I’ve worked with over nearly 20 years of being a freelance editor. Some of them quit writing. Some gritted their teeth and ploughed on, dragging their unhappiness with them. And eventually, their struggle showed in their writing.
The American poet Robert Frost wrote:
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.
To that I would add:
No enjoyment in the writer, no enjoyment in the reader.
Of course, I’m not suggesting that writing is always fabulous fun. We’re talking flesh-and-blood on the page here, not crayoning pictures of rainbow unicorns. But overall, I’ve found that being a writer needs to feel good. Otherwise, what’s the point of all your effort? You may as well just walk away from your desk and do something that makes you happy. Read a book. Bake a cake. Eat a cake.
What if you don’t want to walk away, though? What if you really, really want to be a writer – for life – but you’ve got a bit lost? In that case, try this:
Get back to writing for the sheer love of it.
Not to impress people. Not to be famous. Definitely not to get rich.
Just write when you feel like it, for as long as you’re still in the flow, and then step away – no pressure, no guilt, no ‘I should’. The only success you need to think about is that you’re successfully making your own dream come true: you’re writing, and it feels good.
Giving yourself the freedom to write joyfully, like you did when you were a kid, can be pretty difficult. All of the grown-up ‘business’ of writing can creep in: Is this good enough? What am I going to do with it – publish it? What will people think of it?
When this happens to me – and it still does sometimes – I try to lead myself gently back to the beginning: to why I wanted to write in the first place, to how writing made me feel as a child and how it makes me feel now if I write for the sheer love of it.
As Henry Miller wrote:
Writing is its own reward.
So here’s a thought: whatever you’re doing or thinking or believing that’s making your writing dream anything less than brilliant, ditch it. Then write something you absolutely love.
