In a post on Writer Unboxed, Tiffany Yates Martin says telling yourself the right story about you is important for your writing success. “I’m talking about the ones you tell yourself: while you’re writing, when you can’t write, after you write, when what you wrote doesn’t get an agent or publisher, or isn’t well reviewed, or doesn’t sell well,” she explains.
Rejection often prompts a search for reasons, she adds. And those reasons usually target our talent, work ethic, and self-worth. Yates Martin says this happens because we tell ourselves the wrong story to begin with.
Usually it goes like this: “If I work hard and learn my craft and write the best story I am capable of writing and keep doing that, then eventually if I am good enough I will get published, my books will be hugely successful, and I will be a working writer forever and ever, amen.”
Of course, that’s not how it works. People can work hard and still not make it. Talented people fail. Success is usually not huge. “This is a business of ups and downs. Of seemingly random outcomes from decisions made based on the most subjective of criteria,” Yates Martin says. Authors may publish a half dozen books before they become the flavor of the month. Another writer with a hot debut may never catch fire with a second or third title.
So, what about that story you tell yourself? Is your story filled with elements you can’t control, like finding an agent or selling 100,000 books a year? If so, Yates Martin says you might reconsider your premise and find a new definition of success. Instead of agents and publishers, consider what makes you happy and fulfilled, what will satisfy you, and what makes writing a joy.
“Examine your assumptions and retell the story you want to tell about your life and your art,” Yates Martin says. “Make yourself the engine of it, the protagonist who drives it, rather than a passive bystander buffeted about by the whims of a subjective and often inadvertently cruel business. Tell a better version of it, one that gives your story a more satisfying journey and a happier ending. And then go be the hero of it.”
