How to avoid or cope with some of the biggest bugbears of being a writer

 

1.      Your friends and family – or even you yourself - don’t take you seriously 

Don’t be afraid to call yourself a writer. If you spend time writing, you are a writer.  It doesn’t matter whether you are published or not or whether you have hundreds of five star reviews or not; what matters is that you write  So, make time to write and make sure that everyone understands that that time is precious.

2.      Rejection

It still always hurts, no matter how often it happens and no matter how many acceptances you have. It’s okay to think “Your loss, mate.” But best not to say that. Often it’s not because there is anything wrong with your writing though it’s always worth another look before you send it out again. It can be a matter of timing. It’s all so very subjective anyway. So, dust yourself off, give the work a little tweak, take an honest look at why it may have been rejected, consider it a “rewrite” and get it out there again. It’s good in fact to have quite a few things out there. A publisher may bite.   

3.      Professional jealousy

Either feeling it or being the victim of it can be uncomfortable. It’s not fair is it, that your writing friend got a three book deal and her writing is no better than yours? And it’s annoying when you get the good news from a publisher and your writing friend ignores you.

Force yourself to be glad for your friend. Your time will come.

Make your jealous friend an important part of your launch. You never know, she may be able to network at your event and get some good leads.  

4.        Running out of ideas

Often when you first start out you have tons of ideas. Then you use them up or decide that they weren’t so good after all.

Remember there are ideas are all around you. Retell an old story by taking a different character’s point of view or bringing it into the 21^st century. Take a walk and look at what folk are doing, Lots of stories there as swell. Or try a writing prompt. There are various books around full of them and you can often find them on social media.

5.      “I’m going to write a novel one day”

Says your non-writing friend.

Oh so many assumptions here: that it’s easy, that anyone can do it and that you will be pleased to read the end product of someone right at the beginning of a writing career.

Could you play devil’s advocate here?  Show a real interest. Ask them how they’ll find the time, have they planned the novel out yet, have they done any research. If they ask if you’ll look at it say that you don’t have time but point them towards someone you know who edits.  If you do that yourself discuss your rates. You might offer mates’ rates but be clear that you must make it worth your while.      

Professional jealousy

We talked about this recently at a Society of Authors Manchester meeting. I’ve come across other people talking about it before.  I’ve certainly felt it and I’ve been on the receiving end of it. It is often worse when you know the successful writer personally.

Some examples

• A writer whose work you’ve edited tells you her latest novel has sold 100 copies in a few days
• An author you’ve mentored gets an agent and you’re as yet unagented
• A member of your critique group gets a book deal yet you know their work has quite a long way to go
• A colleague gets an award and you helped them to get there
• You come second in a competition that your writing friend wins.

 

What it does to you

It eats you up. You actually have to force yourself to congratulate the other writer. You feel inadequate.  You see yourself as an imposter. You may even feel like giving up.

 

Changing your mind-set

This may take some self-discipline but it is worth remembering:

·         No two creative practitioners will have the same journey.

·         Sure you have some rejections but remember your successes as well.

·         If they can do this it is possible for you as well.

·         You may ultimately be able to achieve even more than they have.

And remember to smile anyway – the act of smiling even when you don’t feel like it makes you feel like smiling. Offer your congratulations even if that is hard.

Professional jealousy = wasted energy so get over it

However, this isn’t always that easy.  Jealousy isn’t always something we can control. It’s an emotion that takes over. It chips away at us and can seriously damage our well-being. Can we talk ourselves out of it?

I’m probably not alone in being jealous of J K Rowling. She’s a great story-teller, obviously well-read and we all love Harry and co. And darn it, her first adult novel has gone straight to the top of the bestseller charts. But some of my stories are just as good, aren’t they? I’m well-read too and I think my writing is quite good. I have another feeling towards J,K, though. I’m extremely grateful to her for giving us another great example of good versus evil, of getting so many people reading – including some previously reluctant males - that more people are reading my works too.     

It’s sometimes harder when it’s closer to home. My colleague Antony Rowland recently won the Manchester Prize for his poetry. I lecture in creative writing at the same HE institution where he teaches a little creative writing and lots of other things. I immediately felt useless. Shouldn’t I and the others in the creative writing team be achieving this sort of success? Hang on a minute, though.  I’m not a poet and I didn’t enter the competition this year even though there’s a section on short fiction. That spark of jealousy, fortunately, only lasted about five minutes. The next emotion was of extreme pride. One of us has been noticed. I was also extremely touched when Antony said in an interview with a newspaper that he was part of a strong creative writing team.

Frank Cottrell Boyce recently won the Guardian Literary prize. That’s where I’d like to be and maybe I won’t get there because – well, Frank Cottrell Boyce – will I ever be that good? But wait a minute: he writes a range of material for the same readership as I write for. So, my work counts. I’m glad he was given this award. I’ve met him once and even shared the dubious of pleasure of getting lost and arriving late at the same event with him. I will be working with him in the not too distant future. So, someone in my circle of influence is highly regarded … bring it on.

What about when someone in your critique group or another writing friend gets published / represented where you’ve been looking? Or gets a better book deal than the one you were offered? Or wins a competition that you also entered? That can be harsh. You want to be glad for the friend but you are so disappointed for yourself.

At this point I have to remind myself of what I often tell my students. You can do it IF you really want to. It is of course an enormous “if”. You will have to face rejection, feelings of inadequacy, possibly poverty, they say 10,000 hours working on your craft and this occasional jealousy for which you may well hate yourself for a while. You have to hold the vision. There is some luck involved but you usually find when your scrutinize the more successful work, that guess what, it is actually better then yours even if it is by only a small margin.

This is where those fellow-writers who make us jealous for a few moments can help us.  They provide the bench-marks. It’s the Manchester Prize, the Guardian Literary prize and a decent book deal with representation by a decent agent that you set as your goals. Our friend / colleague / writing buddy has done this, therefore it is possible for us as well. We may have to try a little bit harder, though.

I always take much comfort in remembering Louisa May Alcott who worked as a jobbing writer for twenty years, no doubt earning a meagre living but being content in her work, and then wrote Little Women. Aren’t we glad that she did? She invested what she earned from that in the railways and became quite rich. Possibly after 10,000 hours of other writing?  

We can’t help the feelings but can we turn them into something that can work positively for us?