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| Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos - Francisco de Goya y Lucientes |
Yeah, not so much. Don't get me wrong. There's a lot to love about being a full-time writer, and I feel incredibly fortunate to be earning a living doing what I love most and consider myself to be best at. But life as a professional writer isn't actually all that different from life as an amateur who's doing what they do just for shits and giggles.
No two writers will be exactly alike, but the following are a few of the struggles that are common among pretty much all of us, whether we've managed to go professional with our work yet or not.
1. The fear of rejection remains a very real thing.
I don't care what other writers would have you believe. None of us ever becomes totally fine with rejection. Do you eventually reach a place where you've thoroughly accepted that it comes with the territory? Yes. Do you get used to it and learn to stop taking it personally? Also, yes. But there will always be a part of you that hangs on tenterhooks when you've submitted something you're really proud of to a publisher for consideration. You really want that "yes," but you're terrified that you'll get a "no" instead.
And even when you know "no" isn't personal, it still sucks to hear. It still means something you worked hard on didn't quite make the cut for whatever reason, even if it's that it just wasn't what the publisher was looking for at the time. But every one of those experiences makes you better and stronger. Every "no" is a bit easier to bounce back from than the one before.
2. You still have periods where you feel like you'll never have another good idea.
Even prolific writers deal with writer's block and go through creative slumps. To be honest, I'm coming off of one right now. As is typical of me, I wasn't dealing that well with the summer heat when it first started. It made me feel sluggish and depressed, so the last thing I wanted to do was sit down and write most days. I also feel like nothing much that I've written lately has caught fire to the extent I hoped it would when I published it, so that doesn't help, either.
But I've learned to just keep going during periods like those because they always pass. Eventually, my usual flow of ideas picks back up. Or something encouraging happens that rekindles my enthusiasm for putting new things out there. An older story will catch on and suddenly find an audience, or I'll get a really lovely note from a reader that reminds me people do read what I write and care about my content. Sometimes your brain just needs a rest, is all. Let it have one whenever possible.
3. There will always be people who don't take your writing seriously.
Unless you're lucky enough to come from a family or a social circle that's chock full of professional writers, artists, or other creatives, you'll probably always struggle to get others in your life to take your work seriously. You'd think a full-time paycheck that pays actual bills and keeps food on the table would shut people up and show them they were wrong not to believe in you, but it usually doesn't.
For instance, my mother knows how seriously I take my writing these days. Historically speaking, she's been very critical of my work and my choices as to how I go about selecting projects, so I really don't share those details with her anymore. But she knows writing is my sole source of income. She also knows it's what pays for the food that goes in all our mouths. It doesn't stop her from thinking of me as unemployed and my writing as a hobby instead of a job, though.
4. Your muse still doesn't always show up when you want her to.
No writer is any stranger to how fickle inspiration can be. When you've made plenty of time to sit down and chip away at your current work in progress or churn out some new content for your blog, you could have zero creative energy. But that same energy will surely find you when you wake up from a sound sleep in the middle of the night or otherwise really need to be doing something else. That hot nonsense doesn't stop when you become a professional writer.
You do get better at not needing to feel crazy inspired to get things done. If I waited until I felt like it to try to get even my creative writing done, it wouldn't happen very often. I've learned how to help coax my mind into the proper mode with stimuli like music, scents, or lighting, though. And when all else fails, my brain will eventually get the memo that it's time to be creative if I just sit down and start typing something -- anything. Yes, I take advantage of those bursts of perfect inspiration when I can, but I don't count on them anymore.
5. You won't always be sure what your next move should be.
My writing career has gone through quite a few changes since it first began about a decade and a half ago. Almost none of them were planned out in advance. And for extra fun, I never could have guessed which decisions would turn out to be the smartest because it was never the ones that sounded the most sensible and rational at the time. It was almost always the stuff I decided to do on a whim without really expecting anything to come of it.
As a result, I've learned to trust my instincts and really pay attention when I feel like the powers that be are nudging me toward one decision over another. This goes double for opportunities that just plain sound like fun or that will give me a chance to do more of the type of writing I like the most. That's how I eventually managed to do something I'd wanted to do for a very long time -- branch out from full-time copywriting and start making more of my living via my "real" writing.
So, yeah. The bad news is going professional with your writing isn't going to remove very many of the challenges you probably deal with now. The good news is that you will finally get to enjoy the validation and personal satisfaction that comes with doing something you truly love for a living. Not a bad deal, if you ask me.
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