If you’ve been a writer for any time at all, you’ve suffered from a painful experience.
Perhaps several.
You’ve had your work rejected. You’ve gotten a bad review (or two). You’ve had your story ignored by agents, editors, and contest judges. You’ve heard from your family that you’re wasting your time. You’ve released a book on the market only to watch it languish in obscurity.
As a professional writer for over twenty years, I can tell you that it gets better. The more skills you develop, the more triumphs you’ll experience and the more rewards you’ll receive.
But the truth is that as long as you’re a writer, you’re going to be at risk for emotional pain.
I was reminded of this the other day while reading Stephen Chandler’s great book, Reinventing Yourself. In Chapter 8, Chandler tells the story of Doug Grant, who fell from a scaffold and ended up in the hospital temporarily paralyzed from the waist down.
Despite his diagnosis, Doug was determined to walk again. Not only did he, but he went on to win a gold medal in the world championships of weightlifting.
“If you focus on the pain,” Grant said, “and think of nothing but the pain, you will not get anywhere. You have to accept the pain for what it is and then focus completely on what you want. The more you focus on what you want, the less the pain matters.”
As I read this story, I thought, How appropriate for writers! We all experience pain on this journey, but it’s completely up to us how much we want to focus on that pain.
Too often we get end up ruminating about it and let it lead us to negative thoughts like I’m not good enough or the market is too competitive or I’m not one of the lucky ones.
But just like Grant, we can choose to think differently. We can redirect our painful experiences so they help us grow and move forward, rather than allowing them to keep us down.
Nigerian author Ijeoma Umebinyuo suggests that when we experience pain, we take three steps:
- Let the pain visit.
- Allow it to teach you.
- Refuse to let it overstay.
Let’s look at how we might approach these steps as writers.
1. When a Painful Writing Event Occurs, Don’t Ignore It
Say you just received a rejection on a piece you had high hopes for. Maybe this was your tenth rejection, plus this was a publisher you really wanted, and now you’re not sure where to go with your story.
The reason for suggestion #1 is that so many of us turn away from the pain. We stuff it down, try to ignore it, and go on about how we’re “fine,” while drowning our emotions in things like television and ice cream.
Repressing emotions is unhealthy, and has been linked to an increase in chronic conditions.
“When emotional pain is pushed down, away or not recognized, it grows,” says life coach Cara Maksimow. “It will find a way to make itself known and will do so in self-destructive ways. Trying to escape or fix any emotional pain is often unsuccessful.”
Second, we deprive ourselves of the “practice” of experiencing pain.
Ask any seasoned writer: After receiving several rejections, we get better at it. They still hurt, but over time, we learn to care more about staying true to ourselves and the work than about what someone else thinks of it.
To reach that point, though, you have to allow yourself to feel the pain. Sense it, experience it, and the next time it comes, it will be more familiar—and you’ll be better equipped to handle it.
2. What Can You Learn from this Writing-Related Pain?
Suggestion #2 encourages us to learn what we can from this pain. Why does it hurt? By delving into it a little more, you get to know yourself, and that’s a critical step to becoming the successful writer you want to be.
Some possible questions to ask yourself include:
- Why did this matter to me so much?
- What am I feeling now because of this event?
- Are those feelings true/valid, or am I thinking too negatively?
- What can I do to reduce my chances of feeling this pain again in the future?
Question #4 may be the most important one, but you need to ask questions 1-3 first to be sure you get to the truth of your pain and what’s causing it. You also need to be sure you’re not catastrophizing—making the event more important than it needs to be.
The rejection doesn’t mean you’ll never get published, for example, or that your writing is crap. Allowing yourself to drop into that sort of negativity will only hurt you and your future creative efforts.
Instead, by asking yourself these questions, you may realize that you want to find readers for your work or that you feel incomplete without them. What can you do to reduce your chances of feeling that pain in the future?
Take some time to brainstorm your options. You could get help on the piece of writing you’re submitting—hire a professional editor, for example. You could also work on some other shorter pieces that you could submit to blogs or online journals, increasing your chances of finding new readers.
Try to emerge from each painful writing event with at least two proactive decisions—two things that you are going to do to reduce your chances of feeling that pain again.
That doesn’t guarantee you a pain-free writing life, but it does help you to take positive steps forward.
3. After a Painful Writing Event, Release the Pain
Suggestion #3 is equally important because writers tend to hold on to old hurts a little too closely.
All of us remember certain particularly cold or insulting rejections. Some of us can recite our bad reviews word for word. We can tell you in quotation marks what our English teachers said about our writing ability, or what some reader said that happened to hit a nerve.
Part of this cannot be helped. Humans have a negative bias, meaning that our brains naturally respond more vigorously to pain and other negative experiences than they do positive ones. This is something we develop from a very early age—hypervigilance to attacks and what we see as dangerous events.
Knowing this, we have the power to turn our brains to more positive thoughts. That’s an important step, as we need all the positivity we can muster to achieve our goals.
Once you’ve experienced the pain, had a chat with it, and learned what you can from it, it’s time to let go. You can simply tell yourself to “let go,” then police any clinging thoughts you may have in the future, or you can perform a letting-go ritual, such as burning that rejection letter or holding a “bye-bye rejection” party with your writing friends.
5 Good Things About Painful Writing Events
In addition to going through this process, it also helps to remind yourself that pain is a necessary and even positive force along your writing journey. You are the hero of your own story, and what sort of hero would you be if you were spared obstacles along the way?
It’s not pleasant at the time, to say the least, but your pain will help you in the following five ways…if you let it.
1. Writing pain will make you stronger.
I rarely hear of a successful writer who hasn’t endured pain along the way. The hard lessons you learn from your painful experiences will shape you into a better, stronger creative individual who is well equipped to handle the publishing industry.
2. Writing pain positions you for success.
To succeed as a writer, you need to be strong, resourceful, and able to adjust and adapt as necessary to succeed. Each painful event you go through prepares you for this.
Just as an experienced mom takes calm action when her fourth child comes in with a broken arm, an experienced writer handles bad reviews, slowing sales, and other disappointments and challenges with professionalism—all because of what he or she learned from past painful experiences.
3. Writing pain keeps you humble.
A writer often tends to vacillate between thinking he’s the greatest artist that ever lived to thinking that everything he writes is crap. As long as that writer doesn’t allow a painful event to affect him for too long, he will learn that there is a plethora of amazing talent out there, which will keep him humble and inspire him to work even harder.
4. Writing pain inspires independence.
I have found this one to be particularly true. The more experience I gain as a writer, the less I’m concerned with what other people think. I want my readers to enjoy my work, and I put a lot of effort into achieving that goal, but no longer am I begging at the feet of publishers or editors to give me their nod of approval.
In the end, all that matters is the work we do, and it’s incredibly freeing to let go of the outcome to some extent. Painful experiences teach you to focus on that which you can control and to worry less about those things that you can’t, which creates a healthier approach to the craft.
5. Writing pain helps you find your path.
What is your writing career supposed to look like? Most of us figure this out as we go, and our painful writing experiences can help inform our decisions.
Maybe you are regularly rejected on your romance writing, but people love your science fiction short story. Maybe your nonfiction is continually successful, even while you struggle with your fiction. Maybe you find over time that you enjoy being a freelance writer or editor more than fighting to earn money by publishing books.
Usually, these sorts of findings come at least partly from our painful writing experiences. If you look at them carefully and find out what they’re trying to teach you—without falling into negativity or self-doubt—you can use them to chart a path that is uniquely yours, and that uses your strengths and skills in a rewarding way.
It’s a rare good story that doesn’t contain times of struggle. One day, you’ll turn around and realize what a heroic journey you’ve been on, and then you may even be grateful for the painful experiences.
For now, grit your teeth, stand back up, and keep going. Your writing matters. Always.
How do you deal with writing-related pain?