Hey everyone! Here we are at the last post before my hiatus. I’m hoping that I can start work on the new series during my hiatus and work some more on my own personal writing projects. If you want to know what the next series is read through this whole post to see the announcement section at the end! So, without further ado…
Emotional Challenges of Writing
Writing is hard. It was one of the first things that a published author ever told me when I attended my first writing conference. It’s an intimidating sentence that scares away many a young and beginning writer. If that had been all the author had said to me at the conference I would have been too scared to return to writing after that. But that isn’t all that they said. They said, “Writing is hard. But writing is also one of the funnest things I have ever done because I can do it over and over again and its different every time.”
Although writing is difficult it can also be very rewarding if you are willing to put in the work. The difference between a writer and some who wants to be a writer is actually writing. Most of the time my posts are centered around very practical advice that you can apply actively to your writing. In this post I really just want to talk about some of the emotional challenges of writing and some of the ways that I have found to avoid letting them stop me from writing.
One of the hardest parts of writing is actually writing. It’s hard, it takes time, it uses a lot of creative brain power, and can be very difficult to just sit and do for long periods of time. For me personally, (and for many of my friends) the most frustrating part of writing isn’t trying to solve a plot hole, make a character more creative, or build a world – the most frustrating part is actually writing those things.
For me this is a difficult emotional challenge because I get very wrapped up in my writing and, occasionally, my reading. When my character is dealing with a stressful situation, I become very stressed. When my character is feeling depressed, I suddenly find myself very depressed. This makes writing not only a brain workout for me but also an emotional work out. Some of my writing friends have expressed that this also happens to them on occasion.
For me, one of the ways that I overcome this challenge is by taking time to sit down and write something out all the way. I try not to write while I’m doing something else or when I might have to stop in the middle of something because I know that if I do then that emotion from the character will stick to me for the rest of the time until I can continue writing that particular scene. Some of my writing friends will just plan which scenes they are writing around activities they are doing so their emotional state does not affect either thing. There are a lot of different ways to get around this emotional challenge of writing.
There are a few other emotional challenges of writing that can be very difficult for some readers but the next big one I want to discuss is rejection.
Rejection for writers can come and many different forms. Some of this might be rejection by a friend or family member who thinks you spend too much time writing. Maybe it’s rejection from a beta reader who doesn’t like a particular character or scene that you spend days working on. Maybe its rejection after rejection from publishing companies as you try to find somewhere to publish the manuscript you’ve worked so hard on. Either way, rejection is a big part of writing as it is with any form of creative work.
There are lots of ways to deal with the emotional challenges that come with rejection. I personally allow myself to feel sad or hurt for a moment but then take those feelings in as a way to learn and improve my writing to try and take the things they said and apply them to changing what I am already working on. The one way that a writer should never handle rejection is by quitting permanently.
Sometimes you might need a break from writing. That’s okay! Everyone needs a break from writing sometimes. I’m taking a hiatus after this post to work on something new. I take breaks all the time! But what you shouldn’t do is quit forever. Be a writer by continuing to write even when it seems difficult.
There are many many more emotional challenges of writing that we can talk about and learn about, but these were the two main ones I wanted to address today. If you have any more emotional challenges that you struggle with in writing or that someone you know struggles with share them below and discuss ways that you and others have overcome those challenges.
And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for.
New series announcement!
There will be a new series starting on September fourth and the name of that series will be: From Idea to Book and will go through each broad step of the process of getting an idea into a book such as Inspiration and Editing and give some advice in each of these areas. I’m hoping that this series will be just as interesting and helpful as all of my previous series.
As mentioned, it will begin again on September fourth followed by the usual posts, stand-alone posts, and short hiatus as usual. I will take this short break between now and then to not only work on some ideas for the posts but take some time to work on my own writing. If you have any suggestions of things you would like to see get talked about in a future post, comment below. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, become a blog page member, share, and follow me on social media at the link on the bottom of the page. And remember,
Get Up, Get Writing, and Get Published. See you next week!
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