Writing can be a tough business, dear friends, and sometimes it can leave you feeling a little bit battered and a little bit bruised.
First, there’s the writing. Day after day, week after week, you pour your heart out, opening up your soul for the world to see, battling self-doubt and your inner critic to fill each page with carefully crafted words.
Then comes the editing. Taking a knife and a red pen to your beloved creation, cutting and slicing and marking and changing, can hurt as much as it can heal.
Next it’s on to the submission process. Trying not to sound as desperate in query letters as you feel, searching for just the right words to describe a work that you’ve come to love in the hopes that you can make someone else fall in love with it, too. Sometimes the submission letters use more words than the story themselves.
Then there’s the waiting. And waiting. And waiting.
After the waiting often comes the rejection, each polite “thanks but no thanks” stinging like a paper cut, again and again, each as sharp and as disappointing as the last.
And that’s if you get a response at all. Many submissions simply disappear into the ether, never to be heard of or spoken of again. Your hard work, your blood, sweat and tears, sent off into the world and found undeserving of even an automated response.
Why am I saying all this? Because it can suck sometimes to be a writer. It can really, really suck. Rejection hurts, shattered dreams sting. Sometimes you honestly wonder if it’s worth all the time and effort you put into the whole process, if maybe writing is just a waste of time that could be spent doing other things.
But if the whole business of writing ever gets you down, know that you’re not alone. Writing is a tough, sometimes even cruel business for everyone, even the most seemingly successful writers, and it really is one that can seem to love you one minute, only to toss you to the curb the next. No one is immune from this – even best-selling authors get bad reviews, polite rejections or revision letters filled with comments in bold red ink.
The fact is that a lot of the time it really isn’t about you at all. It’s all just the nature of the game, the reality of the business, the truth of the creative life. Success requires talent, persistence and effort, but it can also involve dumb luck, random connections and being at the right place at the the right time, elements that can be entirely out of your control. Any creative process, be it acting or singing, painting or drawing, sculpting or writing, involves opening your heart and baring your soul to strangers, and that can be a painful, frightening, even heartbreaking experience, no matter how confident or brave you might be.
Find ways to cope with the hard times, find sources of strength to get through the disappointments and the heartaches, and keep on writing. Sometimes it can feel like writing is a waste of time and effort, a pointless endeavour, a hopeless quest. Trust me, I feel that way too sometimes. I think a lot of writers do, if they’re being honest.
Just don’t quit. Don’t give up. We’re in this together, and together we can muddle our way through it all. Just keep on writing, friends. Remember why you started writing in the first place – not to win awards, or to get reviews, or to make money, though obviously those are wonderful and precious things. You write because you have stories to tell, and hopefully because it brings you some joy or satisfaction. So, keep on writing, and don’t be afraid to throw yourself a little pity party every now and then. It’s a tough world out there for creatives, and a little ice cream (or whatever tickles your fancy) is never a bad idea.
