top of page
  • Writer's pictureLiv

The Write Struggle

Updated: Dec 24, 2017


Whether you write poetry or music or novels or articles for a periodical, you know what it feels like to sit down with your notebook/laptop and your hot tea/coffee, ready for a productive afternoon and...just sit there.


No matter how long you stare at that blank page, nothing comes to you. An hour ago, scrubbing the bathroom floor, you mapped out an entire novel about...something that you can't remember. Two hours ago you were driving to the store for cat food, lyrics to the perfect song formulating in your mind but now you can't remember a single line.


And yet you're drawn to your pen and paper, and you can't help it. You just want to write something.


"Logolepsy: an obsession with words."

Being a writer isn't usually all it's cracked up to be. Expectations of being the next J.K. Rowling or Suzanne Collins are dashed by the time the twentieth rejection letter appears in your inbox. Dreams of being a bestseller with your first masterpiece grow farther away every time you look up. Eventually you sit back at your desk and look at your favorite manuscript that you've bled over for the past two years and...it's just so hard.


No one wants your book. Marketing is a nightmare, agents are expensive, and you've already had your best friend edit your manuscript. Creating your own cover is almost impossible and hiring someone to do it for you will cost more than you've budgeted for. It's just not worth it. There's no guarantee you can ever make it big as a writer - there's already so many popular authors you have to live up to.


So you decide to find a free self-publisher, slap a randomly generated color-block cover on your novel and leave it on a dusty website, hoping you make it big after you die.


Writing doesn't have to be so stressful. It's not about popularity. The spotlight doesn't make you a great writer. All those bestsellers you want to live up to have set the bar pretty low. Nine times out of ten, they didn't get where they are by writing a piece of art. They reached the Barnes & Noble bookshelves by trying again and again to reach their goals.


So stop looking at your dwindling number of followers on Twitter. Stop Googling yourself to see if anyone's discovered you yet. Go back to the basics.


In the beginning it was about writing your story. Somewhere along the way it became about getting your name out there. There's a sweet spot in the middle. Go back and write.


"Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open." - Natalie Goldberg

Reviews and publishers don't exist anymore. You're not doing this for profit or recognition, you're doing it for you. Pull your book apart, line by line. Kill your darlings. You'll re-read it until you're sick of it. Step back, take a deep breath, feed the cat, and go back to writing.


"Write hard and clear about what hurts." - Ernest Hemingway

Write about something you have passion for. It's amazing to see what passion does to the words in your head.


This isn't about whether you're going to pass or fail. You're not meeting a word count or reaching a deadline. Your paycheck doesn't depend on this book. If you want to be popular, be good.


"If you don't see the book you want on the shelf, write it." - Beverly Cleary

Your manuscript is going to take some weird shapes. Half of it looks like your diary of pent-up frustrations and the other half looks like a research document about the migration patterns of fire-breathing pterodactyls.


You whittle it down and polish it up and all of a sudden it's the biggest snoozefest you've ever read. You throw it at the wall and dump your coffee on it and it comes to you - the adopted cousin should have killed the brother for the goat farm he should have inherited. So you pull out your backup and write some more (and you'll clean up the coffee-soaked pulp that's still in your floor later...when the cat's done licking it).


"I think new writers are too worried that it has all been said before. Sure it has, but not by you." - Asha Dornfest

Eventually, in two years or five years or eight months, you're looking at a book and realizing it's the most valuable thing in your house. You could get robbed of your coffee pot, your laptop, your full-size TARDIS bookshelf, and your stash of cash for that trip to Japan that you've been saving up for, but as long as they leave the manuscript, you know you'll be alright.


You can make coffee in the microwave, right?


You put the book down and go to sleep. (You know, that thing you used to do like two years ago before you ripped your book apart and started over?) You read one or two of those books you bought in the middle of a psychological breakdown; you bake some cookies, you reconnect with your mom.


The manuscript has it's own center of gravity but you leave it in time-out for a solid three months, and it's like winter break after failing your pre-calculus class - you can look out the window and smile again. You can leave your notebook at home. You take your friend out for coffee (because you're tired of the microwaved dirt), you see a movie.


The world is off of your shoulders, your desk is clean, you actually have time to eat all three meals (and perhaps your strict writing schedule was better for your weight) and it's been a long time since you've had to rub indentations out of your nose from your reading glasses.


Finally, it's been three months. Your phone dings and a notification pops up, causing you to lose your game of Angry Birds, but you don't care. Because the notification is a reminder that you set three months ago. It's time. It's time to proofread.


You walk towards your desk, and somehow there are blank spots in your memory when you think back on that putrid coffee-stained disaster. You can't believe it - after all that work, you can't remember what you wrote. You pick up your manuscript and start reading.


And...you smile. And you laugh. And all of the emotions that you wanted to communicate deliver. It's all there, your hard work, and you can't believe that for once in your life...you actually love something that you've written.


And now you look up agents and editors and cover artists and marketing...and it's just as expensive as it was when you tried to publish three years ago. But now you know it's worth it. Because no matter what, the book in your hand is finally the one you want to read.


So now you try. You email and call everyone you can find, haggling and bargaining for results. It takes time, but you get yourself an agent and they want to do some big-time editing on your masterpiece. You cry into your poorly mixed Dr. Pepper and you can feel your fingertips bleeding.


But you're getting there. And you earned it. And you wrote a book that deserves to be a bestseller. So you keep working. You'll get there.


"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." - Ernest Hemingway

23 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All
bottom of page