Hey everyone,
I was thinking of what to say today. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind of action around these parts in the last few days and my emotions have been up, down, and all over the place. It’s so easy to get swayed by all that’s happening around you sometimes, events that throw you from your center, that it takes a minute to find your way back.
It’s been a word that’s been on my mind lately: Sway. Perhaps because I have built my career in a way that I don’t often get swayed by outside forces, whether in the day-to-day or long term. Maybe it’s because in the last year, so many writers have talked about being swayed away from their writing because of Covid-19, lockdowns, and the financial fallout that’s come from that. Or perhaps it’s because every time I start working personally with writers, it’s the one thing that comes up with alarming regularity.
Too many writers are easily swayed. By emotions, other people’s or our own. By opinions. By market expectations. By fear. By failure. By success. By too little energy. By too much energy. By busy schedules. By fill-in-your-own-blank-here.
This is fine, really. What kind of humans would we be if we didn’t react to events around us, but as I have written about before, the world is relentless, the issues don’t go away, every day brings a new crisis, a new challenge to deal with, and a new reality to get used to. Change is our new normal, and as writers, these changes can come at the expense of our art, our passion, and our time. When art and writing is the thing that helps you deal with and navigate changes, what happens when you are unable to? A creator who cannot create will have idle energy that needs a place to go, and often the places it finds are not conducive to your mental health, your relationships, or your life.
If you are a writer who writes to figure out what they think and how they feel, then what happens when you don’t write?
I don’t need to tell you; I bet you’ve experienced it.
It’s why I think it’s essential that writers not just learn the craft and the business of writing, but the mindset of it as well. I’m all about the business, as you know, but increasingly I find that learning craft and business without first fixing that mindset piece is like trying to drive a car with the brakes on.
It’s why we end up going round and round in circles trying to figure out what we actually want to write and say.
It’s why we end up joining course upon course, without taking action on anything that’s taught.
It’s why we seek feedback and opinions constantly from a rolling cast of critique groups and coaches and editors, getting swayed (there’s that word again) in all sorts of different directions based on who’s giving the feedback and how much we like them.
It’s why we constantly seek answers outside of ourselves. It’s why we never feel like we know enough, no matter how much we do. It’s why we lack self trust.
I talk about the business of writing a lot. It’s something I’m deeply passionate about. Craft alone can lead to wonderfully written books and articles but until you learn how to sell, no one will read them. But I’m beginning to realize that there’s a crucial step between craft and business as well, one that I’ve always taken for granted but that I see frequently tripping up the many writers I work with. And that is mindset. Belief. Self-trust.
I could give you all the templates, resources, and leads in the world but if you don’t believe that you have the capability, you will sabotage even the small opportunities that come your way. You will spend weeks on writing an agent query letter that should have taken you four days. You will assume rejections on your novel mean that you’re a shit writer or don’t have what it takes and not write the second, third, or tenth one. People talk about mindset as trying and failing, and then getting back up. Sure, you need self trust, faith, and a certain kind of mindset to get up that one time. But it’s a whole different ball game when it’s your ninth year in the business, you’re on your fourth novel, and you find yourself without an agent and are back to square one. (Exactly what happened to me this year.)
The strength of conviction you need to get up after one failure is a fraction of the strength of conviction you’ll need to get up after the seventy-ninth. Each one is a question, and moving through each one makes you so solid in your belief that you become unshakeable.
Someone asked me last week how I got so confident. It’s simple. I have incredible levels of conviction, built through hundreds, thousands of big and small failures. You can build it, too. Just don’t give up when it goes to shit. And it will. That much I can guarantee. How you react in those moments will determine your future. It’s a cliché thing to say, but it’s also entirely true.
Cheers,
Natasha