Qualities of a Successful Writer

What makes a successful writer? Is there a recipe somewhere for the secret sauce that will guarantee success?

Well, that depends at least partly on how you define success. Society imposes external metrics on us: publication, bestseller lists, awards, fame and fortune. These are tangible, easily measured by outcome, but thinking of success in terms of the externals can lead to a dangerous practice of valuing the end more than the means. It’s thrilling to hold your book in your hands and see your name on the cover, but that’s a fleeting moment compared to the years (yes, years) it will take to get there. If you don’t love the process, you’re in for a whole lot of frustration and unhappiness.

But there’s another way to define writing success: on the level of process.

Show Up

During my MFA, this was known as BIC: Butt in Chair. A writer writes. Sounds obvious, but there’s a difference between writing and wanting to have written that again points to product over process. Stephen King is known for showing up at his desk every day, no exceptions. Some people push back on that advice, but I know if I miss a day at my desk (or worse, more than one), I will struggle to regain my momentum. As Picasso famously said, “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” If you only work when you feel like it, you won’t get much done, and when that great idea comes knocking at your door, you might be busy doing something else.

Remain a Student of the Craft

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If you ever think you’ll reach a point where you know everything there is to know about writing, think again. Committing to this craft means setting yourself up for lifelong learning: going to workshops and conferences, being receptive to feedback, being willing to start over, and reading reading reading. Adopting the attitude of a student means being teachable, accepting that you don’t know everything.

Learning to write is no different than learning to be a carpenter or a violinist. We think it’s different because, on a basic level, we already know how to write. Sure: grocery lists, maybe a basic essay. Not a short story or a novel. These are learned skills, and the learning curve is huge.

The first time I went to the Surrey Writers’ Conference, I attended a workshop where the presenter talked about writing a million words of crap. That was the approximate amount of writing you had to do, they said, before it started coming out good. It was a reminder that success in the external sense doesn’t happen overnight. I adjusted my expectations—though in truth, they had already been adjusted the first time I tried to write a short story. This is harder than it looks, was my takeaway. Duh. Of course it is. Who would ever pick up a violin and expect to sound like Joshua Bell?

Grow a Thick Skin

Being a student of the craft won’t always feel good. Getting feedback can be hard. Finding out that the novel you’ve worked on every day for a year needs to be razed to the ground (or coming to that terrible realization yourself) is tough—but I’ve done it numerous times and so has pretty much every other writer I know. John Green says he throws out 90% of every first draft he writes and then numbers the successive drafts. Each of his novels stands on a foundation of hundreds of drafts.  

Developing a thick skin is especially helpful when you start submitting your work. If you haven’t learned how to accept feedback, you likely won’t last through the submission process. It’s long, and rejection is hard. But if you value the process over the product, you’re already one step ahead of the game.

I highly recommend Kim Liao’s approach of aiming for 100 rejections a year. It flips the script and takes the sting out of rejection. I also recommend Steven Pressfield’s gem of a book, The War of Art, in which he talks about turning pro. A pro understands this is a business and doesn’t take rejection personally. They keep showing up.

Love the Work

In the end, none of this matters if you don’t love what you’re doing. The time I spend early in the morning at my desk is my favorite part of the day. I’m not suggesting you’re going to love every minute of this process. It’s hard at times. It can be frustrating. Sometimes you stare at the page for an hour and write… nothing. Or you fill three pages with what you realize afterwards is utter drivel. But if, on balance, you don’t love what you’re doing, if you can imagine giving it up, if it isn’t the thing that fulfills you and makes you happy, why do it?

Ignore That Slippery Finish Line

Well, yes, there are the external rewards at the end. That finish line. The email you get from a publisher informing you they want your novel. You have finally arrived. You’re successful in the way most writers define success.

I’m willing to bet that good feeling will last for a few days and then you’ll nudge your finish line a little farther away. If success was publication, now it will be reviews, bestseller lists, awards. Which ones? Whichever ones you don’t have. If you make money, it won’t be enough. That’s the danger of using external measures of success; because they’re slippery, they will never quite satisfy you.  

Viktor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning, said: “Don’t aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication.”

Loving the work for its own sake might not fully cure the tendency to keep moving the finish line farther away, but when you focus on the process rather than the product, you’re more likely to find fulfillment and happiness. The externals will be a bonus.

Summary for Busy Writers: A successful writer focuses on process rather than product. Show up, be a student of the craft, love the work, and you will be successful regardless of the outcome.

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