The emotional roller coaster of writing—have you experienced it?
Most likely, your answer is “yes,” as it’s a rare writer who hasn’t.
Sometimes, writing is an amazing high. The story is going so well that you write furiously for hours without noticing the passing of time. Your email inbox is filled with offers from publishers. The book sells way better than you expected and you get amazing reviews. You have a permanent smile pasted on your face and you can’t believe you’re lucky enough to be a writer.
Other times, writing is a drag. The story is crap and you don’t know how to fix it. You have a file filled to overflowing with rejections. Your last book was basically ignored, you have few sales, and the reviews are disappointing. You’re tired of trying to market, and you’re wondering if you’re cut out for this. Maybe you’d be better off being an Uber driver.
We’re up, then we’re down. It’s normal. The problem is, we usually don’t see it that way.
When we’re up, we think we’ve finally arrived and that everything will be wonderful from now on. When we’re down, we’re truly convinced that we’re never going to make it and we suffer a devastating sense of loss, thinking we should give up our dreams of being the writers we wanted to become.
Going through these extremes can be exhausting, discouraging, and disheartening. But what if it wasn’t?
What if we could look upon these ups and downs as part of the normal writing process?
5 Benefits of Seeing the Emotional Roller Coaster of Writing as Normal
I recently examined this idea of seeing these often gut-wrenching emotional changes as normal to the writing life. Here are the benefits I discovered.
1. Less Self-Criticism
When we get too lost in the moment, we lose our perspective. When we’re up—admit it—we feel a little full of ourselves. Yeah, things were tough, but now we’re sailing in the clouds because let’s face it, we’re just that good. Soon we’ll be talking to HBO about movie versions of our books, we just know it!
Then the next book doesn’t sell nearly as well. Or it gets bad reviews, or it fails to make much money, and we fall for it again. Just as we believed we were that great writer when things were good, now we believe equally as fervently that we are frauds. Imposter syndrome raises its ugly head and we drag ourselves around wanting to do nothing but sleep and forget we ever wanted to be writers.
Neither side of this is good for us. When we’re up, we’re worried about staying up. When we’re down, we’re super hard on ourselves. It’s stressful and can lead to exhaustion, burnout, and even health problems.
Seeing these ups and downs as normal allows us to put a little distance between us and the persona we have in each of these situations. When things are going well, we can remember how fickle that is, and remind ourselves that the down times might be right around the corner. We can enjoy it, sure, but not let it go to our heads.
Even better—when things aren’t going well, we can remember that this too, will pass, and that it has little to do with who we are as writers or the lasting impact our work may have over the course of our lifetimes.
It’s an easier, healthier way to look at things. We write. We create our work. That’s our job. The other stuff comes and goes. The less we invest in that, the better off we’ll be.
2. Enhanced Creativity
As most artists know, emotional ups and downs make fertile ground for creativity. Feelings of doubt and frustration can lead to deeper introspection, which is nearly always good for writers as long as we don’t get lost in that space.
I wrote my book, Your Writing Matters, because of my own struggles with the valleys of writing, as well as those of other writers who had shared part of their journeys with me. I realized that it’s often during those times that we must dive deep into our reasons for writing—mainly to decide whether we want to be writers, no matter the consequences.
It’s only after making that decision that the writing life begins to feel more stable and rewarding, as the option to quit and run away has been removed. So there’s nothing wrong with going through the emotional roller coaster, but I do think there is great value in using the experience to deepen our connection with our inner writing selves.
3. Increased Resilience
The first emotional roller coaster I went through as a writer, I figured I was done. I did the second time too. Indeed, there were many times over the course of my career when I wasn’t sure whether writing was really part of my life’s purpose.
Now I see these ups and downs as normal, which has given me the gift of increased resilience. When a publisher says “no” to a project, there was a time I would have given up on it and sent it to never-never land on my computer. Now I find other ways to publish it and give it life. When a book doesn’t sell, there was a time I would have chalked it up to the “it wasn’t good enough” pile. No more. Now I know it’s about the marketing, or better said, the lack of it, not the book.
That doesn’t mean the negative outcomes don’t sting. It just means that they don’t have as big an impact as they did before. These things happen. They’re normal. They just mean we have to find another way to reach our desired destinations.
4. Fosters Community
How do we know the emotional roller coaster is normal in the writing life?
Because of other writers. Which brings me to the next benefit of accepting all this as just par for the course—it helps foster community. No matter how good we get at dealing with it all, it helps so much if we have others who understand what we’re going through.
Interestingly, it’s often the low times that push us to seek out communities. We want to know if what we’re experiencing is normal or if we should turn in our pens. How soothing it is to hear from other writers who have gone through the same thing!
Not that we want any of us to feel discouraged or down, but when some are brave enough to share their challenges, we all rejoice because we realize that this isn’t about how bad or good we are. It’s about finding our way in a difficult industry, and we can do that a lot more successfully together than we can while remaining isolated.
Whenever you feel a desire to reach out, I encourage you to do so. Read blog posts and watch videos by other writers. Find out what they have to say about the ups and downs of the life, and allow their experiences to inform yours. If you can find some writing friends near you or online that you can regularly commiserate with and encourage, so much the better.
5. Helps Us Embrace the Identity of “Writer”
I’ve called myself a writer for over 25 years. It started when I got my first job as a copywriter—I even had a business card that confirmed my identity.
But it’s only been in recent years that I’ve felt myself begin to trust this part of myself. I attribute that to the many emotional roller coasters I’ve been on—and I imagine more will be coming.
It’s important to realize that it takes time to increase your skills in any craft, particularly writing. We have to prove to ourselves that we have what it takes to be writers, and the better we get at everything involved—writing, editing, publishing, and marketing—the more confidence we build.
In the beginning, we call ourselves writers. And that gets us by for a while. But it’s doing the work, digging in the trenches, going through the tough times, and getting up after we’ve been knocked down that makes us real writers.
You’ll feel it when you get there. It’s not an exciting feeling. It’s quiet. Subtle. Content. I’m a writer. I could show you my scars, but it’s not necessary because it doesn’t matter whether you believe me or not. I believe me, and I’ve earned that. No one can take it away from me.