What is the key to being a successful writer?
Building an identity as a successful writer.
But what does that mean?
Dreaming is Not Enough
Kaylie was discouraged. She’d been dreaming of a successful writing career for years. In high school, she won a contest for a short story she wrote, and in college, she always did well in her creative writing classes.
When she graduated and started working in the real world, Kaylie kept her dream alive. She told her friends that she was working on a book, and shared the plot with those who were interested. Sometimes she submitted her work to online and print publications, and though she hadn’t had any accepted yet, she hoped it was just a matter of time.
Meanwhile, she had a demanding job as a nurse and a vibrant social life that left little time for actual writing. As the years went by, she advanced in her nursing career, got married, and had a couple of kids, and though she was mostly happy with her life, she felt disappointed that she had not fulfilled her writing dreams.
When a friend asked her about it one day fifteen years later, Kaylie shook her head. “I guess I just wasn’t good enough,” she said. “It never happened for me.”
The Outside World May Not See You as a Successful Writer, But…
Kaylie didn’t have a successful writer identity.
“Of course not,” you may say. “She never achieved success as a writer!”
But therein lies the problem. A writer’s identity doesn’t come after you’ve experienced success.
It comes before.
We think we have to experience success before we can call ourselves successful writers. That makes sense on the surface. You aren’t a successful writer until you’re a successful writer, right?
That may be true in the outside world. The problem is, it’s not true in your mind.
To become a successful writer, you have to build an identity you believe in.
That’s the only way you’re going to get where you want to go.
You Have to Build Your Own Writer Identity
So how do you build this identity before you experience success?
It takes a lot more than saying, “I’m a successful writer!”
That may be fun and uplifting for a few seconds. But it will do next to nothing for your writing career.
Instead, you have to mold yourself into the writer you want to become.
I’m reminded of military boot camp. Two of my brothers went through it to be part of the Coast Guard and the Air Force. The program is successful year after year at molding thousands of young people into disciplined, efficient members of the military.
What happens in boot camp? From day one, you’re a cadet. There is no preparation, getting ready, or growing into it. Your hair is cut, you put on the uniform, and you start your training. You follow the schedule the military sets out, you do what you’re ordered to do, and you conduct yourself as a cadet along with all your fellow cadets.
From day one, you are a cadet. That is your identity. Period.
Within a few weeks, someone meeting you would believe without a doubt that you are a member of the military. It would show in how you conduct yourself and your overall attitude and confidence.
How different from how we approach becoming writers. We dream about it. We write (often sporadically). We submit now and then. But otherwise, we go about our lives as we were before.
Oops.
First, You Must BE A Successful Writer
Imagine for a moment that there is a writing boot camp. What would it be like?
I think it might be something like this: You get up at the same time every day to write, then you write for an hour. You go to your day job, but at lunchtime, you spend at least 20 minutes researching possible publications where you might submit your writing.
After your day job is over, you spend at least 30 minutes exercising to keep your body and mind in shape. Every other night, you spent at least 45 minutes on your author platform, blogging, posting on social media, guest posting, vlogging, and creating new freebies to attract newsletter subscribers.
Once a month, you make a list of educational opportunities and pick three to engage in over the next month. These might be workshops you could attend, craft books you would read and study, writing conferences you plan to go to, and the like.
And once a year, you would take at least a four-day trip away to reflect on your progress and set goals for the upcoming year.
This is just my off-the-cuff idea of what it might be like. The point is that to build an identity as a successful writer, you must adopt the habits of a successful writer.
Like that new boot camp soldier, you must shed your former identity as a wanna-be writer and slip on the identity of a successful writer…now.
What Would a Successful Writer Do?
That question should inform how you set up your life—if you’re serious about being a successful writer.
Ask this question in every part of your day. After you get up in the morning: What would a successful writer do? Whatever your answer to that question is, you should do it. You’re building an identity as a successful writer.
When it’s your scheduled time to write—because of the schedule you built—what would a successful writer do? Simply imagining the writing session as that of a successful writer could make a huge difference in how much writing you get done that day.
When launching your first book: What would a successful writer do? Certainly, they wouldn’t simply put the book out there without a marketing plan. So you should take all the steps that such a writer would take.
What if you don’t know what a successful writer would do?
Then your job is to find out.
Bottom line: Change your statement from “I want to be a successful writer” to, “I am a successful writer as you can see by my daily habits.”
Do that, and nothing will stop you.
How did you build an identity as a successful writer?
Featured image by cottonbro from Pexels. Additional pictures by Tima Miroshnichenko and Ivan Samkov from Pexels.