I want to talk about a part of writing that’s not often discussed, and that’s the burn out. There’s a ton of pressure out there for writers:
- Write every day
- Set word count goals
- Finish what you start
- Submit, submit, submit
- Dust yourself off after each rejection and get your work back out there
- Never miss a deadline
- Prioritize your writing
One piece of advice I once read tried to shame me into believing if I’m not writing every single day, then I probably just don’t want it badly enough. Or even worse, it must mean I’m not a real writer. What does that even mean? What is a real writer anyway? What defines it? How do you know if you are or aren’t one?
I’m foraging through a difficult period right now personally, and it’s having a huge impact on my ability to write. I’m filled with bucket loads of self-doubt that’s making me question how much I want to still do this. All that advice. All that self-imposed pressure. All that freaking REJECTION over the last fourteen years. And for what? What compels me to keep doing this?
There’s this little voice inside my head that pipes up and tries to convince me my life would be so much easier if I just stopped writing. It tells me things like, “Think of all the other things you could do. Think of all that stress you could let go of. Think of how much time you could reclaim.”
Sounds so caring, doesn’t it? So concerned about my well-being. Like some best friend who only wants what’s best for me. Aww. Thanks, my dude. I love you too.
Except he’s not looking out for my own best interests. Truth is he’s only looking out for himself. He’s scared. Terrified even. But terrified of what? And that’s where I get stumped and have to pause and put on my coiled-up tin foil thinking cap.
There’s no progress bar for being a writer. There’s no finish line. There’s no crowd on the side of the road cheering you on and handing out cold electrolyte drinks and fuel bars to keep you going. Sure, you might have a family and a network of friends who want you to succeed, who offer encouragement and pats on the back. But unless you’re James Patterson with a team of writers cranking out ghost content in your name, writing is an individual sport. You are a business of one, at least in the beginning, and at least for most of us whose last names aren’t ‘Sanderson’. Writers must be their own coaches, their own trainers, and usually have to bus in their own cheering sections. It can all be intensely exhausting, and it can wear you out like a pencil down to the very nub.
The pressure is self-imposed, at least it is for me. I haven’t signed a book contract with any publishers, so I have no deadlines to meet or editors waiting on my work. I’m still entering the Writers of the Future contest, which has a quarterly deadline. But all the entries are anonymous; it’s not like some slush reader at the contest is tapping her foot asking me where my story is. It’s always been just me standing behind myself, cracking Indiana Jone’s whip just over my ear, driving me on. I suspect that’s how it is for every writer. No one but us is making us do it. We must provide our own motivation.
Ask any three writers why they write, and you’ll likely get three different answers. Every writer is different, and the reasons for writing are probably as numerous as the numbers of writers out there. I think those motivations for writing — those reasons driving us to do what we do — are probably also what’s driving our fears.
I am by nature a perfectionist, and I happen to love words. I love the right words. I love the right words in the right order. And of course those words must be spelled correctly. I believe very strongly in the power of words. The power of words have shaped nations (US Constitution), incited heinous violence (Adolph Hitler), inspired change (Martin Luther King, Jr), encouraged innovation (John F Kennedy), and taught us transcendental truths (Jesus Christ).
I started writing because I wanted my words to matter. That was my motivation, my reason for writing. In the past fourteen years, I’ve sent my work out to contests and magazines, hoping that someone would read my words, and that those words would make them feel something. So far, nada. And inside that giant, gaping hole of nada is where all the fear lurks.
No one will be changed by my words.
No one will be changed by my words because no one wants my words.
No one wants my words because my words mean nothing.
My words mean nothing because my words are no good.
My words are no good because I’m no good.
A judgement of our work keeps spiraling ever downward until it becomes a judgement of us personally. And there’s the real danger. It’s that constant barrage of personal negativity that leads to self-doubt and self-criticism and eventually, as in my case all too frequently, burning myself out and just wanting to quit.
There are two things here that can help, things that help me anyway. First, my motivation for writing must be about me and me alone; it can’t be for other people. I have to remind myself that writing can’t be about changing other people. I have zero control over other people or how my work affects them. I can still want my words to matter, but they have to matter to me. Once they go outside of me, they can’t matter to me anymore. I have to let go of them, set them free, let them impact other people in whatever way they will, including not at all if that’s the case.
Second — and this is by far the most difficult — I have to disassociate the idea that the success or failure of my work is somehow a reflection on who I am as a person. It’s hard, so hard as a writer, because we put so much of ourselves into our work. And when we imbue that much of ourselves into our stories, and those stories get rejected, it feels personal. It’s not, of course. Those magazine editors and story judges and slush readers have no idea who we are. How can they, especially if those submissions are anonymous? It might feel that way, but it’s not, and I have to constantly remind myself of that.
We writers are a strange bunch. We feel deeply because we have to. It’s our job to plumb the depths of emotion so we can bring it to the page. After all, we can’t make our readers feel something that we ourselves haven’t explored thoroughly first. It makes our stories terrific, if not for anyone else but ourselves. But that much exploration can also leave us raw and exhausted.
I have no concluding statement for this one. This was really just me trying to work through these thoughts and ideas for myself, trying to figure out where my head is and what might be holding me back, because I’ve been feeling pretty burned out myself lately. But it’s good to step back and get some perspective now and then. Sometimes I can’t fully understand a thing until I slap it down on the page, work through it, rearrange it, reshape it like Play-Doh until I see what it all means. I hope you found something useful in here. Hit me up in the comments if you have anything else you’d like to add.
