Read This If You Can't Stop Thinking About Becoming a Writer
On chasing dreams.
When I first looked into “becoming a writer”, I read everything I could on the subject.
I read books, blogs, tweets, and more. I took free email courses, joined newsletters, and studied the subject so much that when I began writing, I could be as prepared as possible to skip the terrible beginner stage and get straight to making money and creating a perfect life thanks to my words.
However, what I found when I read writing advice online was a bit strange.
Most writing advice falls into one of 2 categories:
“You should definitely become a writer. It’s the best thing ever! I’m writing this from my yacht in Bali.”
“I love writing, but I hate life. Why haven’t I made it yet? The only bills I’m stacking are the bills of my credit card debt. But yeah, try being a writer if you want. You probably will SUFFER for YEARS, just like me.”
This leaves the aspiring writer — the person I used to be — in a weird place.
Who do you listen to?
What should you do?
Here’s the most honest writing advice I can give you.
When you can’t stop thinking about something, you must do it.
When I was in the 5th grade, I had my first crush.
I was convinced that I was in love with that girl who sat two seats in front of me. I wanted to ask her out on a “date” — even though I really know where I could take us out on my 5th grade (non-existent) salary.
It didn’t matter.
I knew she was “the one”.
After a few weeks of quiet deliberation and telling one of my close friends about my crush, I had had enough. I couldn’t take the waiting anymore.
I asked the girl in my 5th-grade class girl out on a date.
I was 10. She (politely) said “No”.
I was shocked. I hadn’t prepared for rejection.
My world crumbled. I sobbed. I felt a pain that I was convinced was worse than death. I felt unlovable. Broken. Flawed. Weak. Vulnerable.
I “failed” — or at least, that’s what I told myself.
This is kind of what “being a new writer” is like. Or being anything. Or trying anything new.
Still — I tried.
Although your writing journey doesn’t have to be as dramatic as my 5th-grade love story that never was, if you can’t stop thinking about something, you will never forget about it until you do it. Until you try.
If you love the idea of being a writer so much that you have a crush on it (like I once did), that means you have to start writing.
If you can’t stop thinking about it, it’s your spiritual obligation to pursue it and accept the possibility of rejection and failure. Never trying is worse than failing.
You can’t always get what you want.
Let’s go back to 5th grade again.
I thought I wanted to marry that one girl in my class. It was a silly thing.
At the time, the rejection from my first-ever courtship stung so badly that I thought I’d never recover. I told myself that I’d never allow myself to have “a crush” again. I’d never let myself feel that pain.
I wanted to protect myself.
In the end, I recovered way faster than I thought I would. A few months later, I realized how silly the whole thing was and how silly (and kind of stupid) I was for expecting dating to be as easy as thinking someone is pretty and “asking them out to 7-11”.
In hindsight, I’m glad that I didn’t get any “false hope” from that experience. It’s made me value the work required to have good relationships more.
When I started wrestling in 7th grade, I had a similar awakening.
I thought that I was “decently tough”. I’d survived 2 middle school football seasons, braved through some tough workouts, and I wasn’t the most out-of-shape guy on my wrestling team either.
It didn’t matter. In my first wrestling match — which I thought was going to be a breeze — I got thrown on my head and pinned in less than 30 seconds.
Afterward, I sat on the bench and cried — just like I had 2 years earlier when I had a crush.
So what does this have to do with writing?
This is about resiliency, and resiliency has everything to do with writing.
Writing well is very hard. It requires you to be comfortable with sucking at something.
Kind of like Jiu-Jitsu.
I coached kids Jiu-Jitsu a couple of years ago, and I also taught adults.
Both the kids and the adults would compete in tournaments, but the kids, I found, were far more resilient when it came to failures. Adults would worry about the tournament for weeks — whereas the kids didn’t even know what day of the week tournaments happen on (Saturdays).
Both the kids and the adults wanted to win, but the adults were far more worried about losing than the kids. The kids were far more resilient after their losses as well.
A few days after a loss, the kids remember how they lost. A few weeks after, they couldn’t even remember if they lost. They were onto the next thing. They were living in the moment.
As adults, we believe we have more serious dreams (like being a writer), and we think this gives us a sense of entitlement. We think our dreams are important and we think that we should protect them.
Screw that. Chasing dreams is more important than protecting them. You can’t protect a life you don’t have.
This is sort of what I see with resentful writers.
An adult telling you that you shouldn’t become a writer because you might not “make it” is the equivalent of me as a 5th-grade kid telling you to never fall in love because you might get heartbroken or me as a 7th-grade telling you to never compete in wrestling because losing is humiliating.
These tales are only one side of the coin.
Resentful people’s ideas and actions are self-fulfilling. Don’t be your own worst enemy. Be open-minded.
But what about you?
I’d like to tell you that this is the last article on writing success you ever need to read.
I’d like to tell you that I know it all and I know whether or not you’ll be successful as a writer.
Unfortunately, I don’t.
But no one does.
Success in anything is never guaranteed. You should not start an endeavor solely because someone told you you’d probably be good at it.
Because, what if you’re not, and then you’re stuck doing something you don’t like and you’re bad at it?
What kind of life would that be?
Listen to what crafts call to you. For you reading this, it’s probably writing, or something similar.
Don’t go full-time on anything right away. You’re setting yourself up for failure if you do that.
Don’t think about it too much. Just start writing. Do it for fun. Do it when you wake up. Do it before you go to bed. Work hard at it.
Do it every day, even when you don’t want to. Practice. Edit. Publish. Keep moving forward. If you want to write full-time eventually, all that means is that you have to be more strict about your discipline to even have a chance.
The people who are bitter are like that because they’re stuck. Don’t let yourself get stuck. Stay in motion. Stay active.
Keep it fun.
Love the craft so much that the results are merely data.
Thanks for reading another edition of The Modern Writer!
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