Everyone talks about gratitude and how impactful it is for creating a happy, fulfilled life, but what about having gratitude for your writing life?
It’s incredibly easy to forget what a gift it is to love writing. When we feel stuck, or when a project stalls out, or when we’re overwhelmed with self-doubt, the last thing we’re thinking about is how grateful we are for writing.
Usually, in those moments, we’re thinking about what a pain it is. We’re thinking about how difficult writing feels, how untalented we are, how silly and pointless writing can be.
Maybe you focus on how long the road is (“I’ll never get published at this rate!”) or how much you still have to learn (“I know nothing about character building!”), but how often do you fill up on simple gratitude for your writing life?
You can love writing but keep yourself from doing it.
Sometimes, it’s just too hard to start writing. The fear of failure can be so overwhelming, it blots out any feelings of hope or joy or excitement that you want to feel when you’re in the creative process.
And, logically, if you never let your writing materialize on the page, you can’t fail, right? If there’s no story/novel/essay/blog post to show the world, the world can’t judge it as good or bad, a success or failure.
If you want to write, if you love writing, if it’s something you truly want to do freely and joyfully, the fear of failing can be one of the biggest obstacles in the way of actually writing.
But it doesn’t have to be that way! Even if it’s been years since you last wrote, you can start again today if you shift your mindset just a bit.
Writing, in general, is no joke. But working on a major writing project, like a book-length manuscript, is seriously no joke.
The great thing about beginning a new project is the excitement. The novelty. The newness of it all. It’s shiny and thrilling and you probably feel full of ideas, even if you’re also a little scared.
Have you been there before? In that place where you’re buzzing with the energy of something new and the words just flow?
I’ve been there. It’s fantastic. I wish all my writing could exist in that elusive, delicious place of flow and ease.
It doesn’t, though. For me, and I’m guessing for many other writers, too, there comes a point when the momentum of starting something new fades and the writing process gets a bit… stickier.
Know what I mean?
Maybe you’re there right now and it’s making you want to light your manuscript on fire and walk away forever.
I’m here to tell you there’s nothing wrong with you if you feel like hitting select all and then delete would solve all your writing woes. Nothing at all. It’s absolutely normal.
But I don’t think you should do it!
Yes, sometimes a project really isn’t working for any number of reasons. I’m not talking about that. You need to use your better judgment and decide if you’re facing a project that is truly flawed or…
If your desire to scrap it all and never look back stems from self-doubt and resistance.
Only you can decide if your project is worth sticking with. But believe me when I say that most of the time, it is.
Here’s how to stay the course instead of bailing when the writing gets tough.
I have distinct memories of writing as a child.
In one memory, I’m in my bedroom, sitting on my orange carpet as I fold three or four pieces of paper together to make a book. I remember transcribing one of my favorite books onto those pieces of paper but changing the narrative around a little bit as I went. The story had something to do with a rabbit, and I even drew illustrations to go along with the plot.
A well-meaning but misguided person once told me that I’d never write after I had kids.
In fairness, she had a small child, a full-time job, and wasn’t a writer herself, but still. You know what writers don’t ever need to hear? All the ways life will make writing difficult or impossible.
We don’t need to hear that because most of us are already battling a full range of reasons not to write every single time we sit down to do it.
One of the top reasons is that we don’t have time. We’re too busy with life and everything we have to do to keep our lives running smoothly. Writing, especially if no one’s waiting for you to finish a story, can often feel superfluous.
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