If you’ve ever felt like the only writer in the world who will never get published, the most-rejected writer in history, or totally alone because you’re blocked or stuck or frustrated, here is a story that will make you realize you are definitely not alone.
Imagine four writers in a room. The talk turns to writing, as it always does when writers sit together in a room.
Yukio is a novelist and martial arts expert. He leans back in his chair, showing off his gorgeous physique. “My adolescence was tough,” he says. “I knew I wanted to write, but my dad thought writing was for sissies. So, I did it in secret. For years, I never told a soul I was sneaking off to write poetry.”
Hildegard could hardly be more different than Yukio. She is a deeply spiritual woman who composes sacred music when she isn’t writing—but she exudes authority and confidence. She smiles thoughtfully. “My problem was self-confidence. I just didn’t think I had what it takes to be a writer. It took me ages to get over that.”
Nathaniel, a fiction writer with a lot of publications, agrees about the confidence issue, but his main problems now, he says, are sales and marketing. “What I can’t stand is seeing third-rate writers plugging their best sellers on talk shows. The publishing world has been taken over by hacks.”
“At least you’re making a living off your writing,” says Charlotte, a novelist who teaches school to support herself—and hates every minute of it. “I’d give anything to quit my job and write full time.”
If you are a writer, you’ve almost certainly had many of these same experiences. If you were to go around the world—even if you could travel back centuries time–you’d hear writers from all eras and cultures who dealt with the same issues.
Novelist Yukio Mishima grew up in a pre-war Japan that could hardly have been more different from our 21st-century world, but he could otherwise have been the first of our writers in a room: He, too, kept his writing a secret from his family, even publishing his early work under a pseudonym. The Catholic abbess and author Hildegard of Bingen lived more than 900 years ago, but, like the writer in our imaginary conversation, she let insecurity get in her way. Reflecting on her early life, she wrote, “Because of doubt and low opinion of myself . . . I refused for a long time a call to write.” Nathaniel Hawthorne never heard of television, let alone talk shows, but, like the third writer in our conversation, he lambasted the “romances” that sold far better than the literary works he labored over. And Charlotte Bronte, the fourth writer in our imaginary conversation was, like many struggling authors, intensely frustrated at having to spend her time teaching, when all she wanted to do was write.
Centuries pass, technologies once undreamed of transform our lives, new societies emerge, and yet the writing life remains the same. It is as if an invisible cord binds writers together. The same ghosts haunt our nights. The same angels inspire us. When they live in 21st-century Tucson or pre-war Japan or medieval Germany, writers struggle with the same issues. The muse who refuses to show up when you need her, the lack of understanding from family and friends, failures and rejections, insecurity, lack of time. Oh, and money.
Each of the writers in this imaginary scenario became a renowned author. Each one is still read. And yet, none of them were immune to the challenges and difficulties of the writing life.
When you feel alone, rejected, and frustrated, keep in mind that you are facing challenges writers have experienced for many generations. Take heart from the fact that you are not the only one to struggle and courage from the realization that you, like the writers in our story, can meet those challenges head on.