“I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be. If you follow your bliss, doors will open for you that wouldn’t have opened for anyone else.”
~Joseph Campbell, Legendary Mythologist

The Challenges of Becoming a Professional Writer

So, you want to be a professional writer?

Do you know why?

Understanding Your Motivation

That’s always a good question to ask at the start of anything major in your life – especially something like a career.

Lots of people write without any intention of becoming a professional. Nothing wrong with that. People may journal, write letters, poetry, jokes, love notes, work related communications, etc. All of that and more is writing. But what is it that motivates you to become a professionally produced or published writer?

The truth is that for most people writing is not an easy thing to do. Only a small percentage of writers – including published and produced writers – actually make any real money at it. Therefore, your reasons for wanting to write ought to be compelling on a deeply personal level and not merely a career move. That’s not meant to be negative. It’s meant to be realistic. Being a professional writer can be a first class roller coaster, both personally and financially.

Do You Love to Write?

The question is: do you love to write? It’s not requisite that you do in order to succeed, but it is mighty helpful.

I’ve said for years that writing is not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach. It takes courage and stamina. You must have a firm belief in yourself when those around you have no ability to envision what you’re imagining before you’ve written it. Some may even think you’re pie in the sky ideas are somewhat daft. It takes a kind of nearly maniacal determination to plow onward regardless of the numerous brick walls that will inevitably pop up in your way. It can mean fully embracing the notorious phrase that is often cited as one of the definitions of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Are you open to working hard?

Writing requires an ability to toil at it for long periods, sometimes years, before your work bears fruit.

Not everyone can hack it.

While writing is hard work, it should be fun for you, too – even when it agonizes you, which it’s been known to do to more than a few.

Because most writers work alone in a room, enjoying the act of writing helps to overcome feelings of separation from the world or loneliness.  If you don’t relish writing, I might suggest you seek ways to find joy in it. Or else there is no shame in exploring and considering other creative outlets that do give you joy – and aren’t as hard on your sense of well-being. Write to suit yourself and stop trying to profit from it.

Writing is a struggle, but it ought not be painful.

Essential Qualities of a Successful Writer

Are you a natural storyteller?

I will assume that you think of yourself as a storyteller, that you really love to tell stories, and most importantly that you have something to say about the world – your world as well as everyone else’s. If you don’t have stories to tell, why do you want to be a storyteller?  Does it perhaps look easy to you?  Do you read books or watch movies or TV shows and think, I could do that? I mean, how hard can it be? All you need to do is sit at a desk and type out what you find to be exciting in your mind’s eye – and hope others will also find it to be readable or watchable. Nothing to it. If so…

Then you should give writing a whirl.

For some it will be easier than for others.  Note I didn’t say easy. I said easier. It’s all relative.

Some writers can just bang out pages like pouring water over a waterfall. I imagine William Shakespeare found the act of writing to be less of a challenge than do I. I imagine Stephen King, John Grisham, Lee Child, Nora Roberts, Agatha Christie, J.K. Rowling, Tom Clancy, Dr. Seuss, Louis L’Amour, Robert Ludlum, J.R.R. Tolkien, R.L. Stine, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and on and on, did not (or do not) suffer too much while in the throes of creation.

Becoming a Professional Writer Requires Perseverance and Resilience

Even after forty years of being a professional writer, plus more than ten years of teaching writing, I still find the act itself to be a challenge.

For instance, this very article has required me to rethink it several times over. I churn. I cogitate. I shake my head a lot. I’m saying this in no way to elicit pity or sympathy from you. It’s not like I’m in a quarry breaking rocks all day. I only say I find it to be a constant challenge so that you’ll understand it isn’t easy even for people who get paid for their work.

Here’s the good news: it does become less of a challenge in various ways over time.

Even after you’ve written a lot, you’re still going to be reinventing the wheel with the next new piece of work. But what also happens is that you eventually come to know many things that do not work well, if at all. Those things quickly become eliminated before you try them again. One way or the other you must regularly face a vast and often hairy unknown. And for me the unknown can sometimes be stultifying. I like knowing where I’m going.

Fortunately, if you’re around long enough you find various ways to overcome what someone once called the tyranny of the blank page – or screen, in most cases these days. The prolific writer, Neil Gaiman, once quipped, “Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it’s always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins.”

There is a solution. You work your way through the aggravation and frustration that can go with writing by…writing more. Keep typing, I say.

Writing is an art and a craft

If you want to know what it takes to be a writer, I highly recommend you read an excellent book called “Bird by Bird” by a fabulous writer named Anne Lamott. That book is filled with boatloads of wisdom about what it means to be a writer. My favorite chapter is called, “Shitty First Drafts.” I’m reasonably confident there is no such thing as a first draft that ain’t shitty. I’m sure there are examples of successful work that contradicts my last statement, but I assure you those will be few and far between. Why do I say that? Because writing is both an art and a craft.

The craft of writing

The craft of writing is primarily the complex ability to affix words and thoughts to a readable (or listenable) medium, having a thorough (or at least a truly decent understanding) of language, an ability to comprehend the fragile and often mysterious rules of writing, to be able to recognize and use the best, most meaningful word at a specific moment, knowing how to develop characters and plot and rhythm and pace, and any number of other basic fundamentals that professional writers must master in order to succeed enough to make a living. Making it even more difficult, different languages vary the rules, some more greatly than others. English is notoriously daunting to learn and master.

The art of writing

But the art of writing is in rewriting.

That’s where the cliched rubber meets the proverbial road. Work that others will admire all happens during revisions. That’s where insight and grace and beauty are to be found.

I have often taught the following analogy: when we’re little kids in school we may have an art teacher hand us a lump of unformed, misshapen clay. We’re then instructed to make something of it – to make a piece of art.  Some may make a bowl, some may make a human figure, some a horse or a car or any number of other objects that will likely have limited value except for the delight of your parents who will be thrilled that you were able to make anything at all.  That nondescript lump of clay becomes shaped and molded until it takes a recognizable form. If you keep at it and learn how to perfect your clay-shaping capabilities, you may eventually turn into a fine artist who knows how to really manipulate the clay into exquisite sculpture. Every now and then an artist will come along who will work long and hard at turning clay into something brilliant that winds up in a museum that thousands may admire for hundreds of years into the future.

What the heck does this have to do with writing?

Everyone starts with a lump of clay.

Here’s the thing: for a writer to start creating a new story he or she must first make the lumpy clay before their story can begin to take shape! For me, writing a first draft is akin to creating a lump of clay. Prior to that there is nothing except our thoughts. And while thoughts can be grand and glorious, they do not equal ink on paper.

So, dig in and write your first draft and fix it later.

Stop fretting over details in draft one. Pound it out. Worry about refinement later.

For me, every first draft is essentially an unkempt pile of words in need of much attention before it is sellable, or even palatable.  Rewriting means refining.  It means scraping away the rough edges, pushing and prodding and pulling and tugging that first draft into something beautiful, something that sings – in the case of musicals, literally.

I’m a rewrite fanatic and advocate.

If you are not the same as me, that’s okay. Good on you. But I know I’m far from alone on this. I rewrite and rewrite and rewrite until I don’t think I can rewrite anymore.  The average number script drafts I complete before I’m ready to hand over a piece of writing to someone else as my “first draft” is typically no less than ten iterations, and sometimes much more than that.

By rewrite I don’t mean I literally throw out the work and start all over again from scratch. Rewriting means taking what you’ve concocted in the first draft and molding it. Reworking sentences, paragraphs, chapters, scenes, sometimes rearranging those, often eliminating that which doesn’t work, adding new thoughts as they arise, replacing words with better, more concise words, and generally making the reading feel breezy.  This can mean anything from totally overhauling a paragraph or more to changing a single word on a page.

I’m not fond of writing first drafts.

Rewriting is what I love to do. But to be a professional writer, you must write first drafts. There’s no getting around it. So, get behind it.

Taking in feedback

Eventually you will have to turn your work over to someone, a colleague, reader, producer, director, etc. so that they can read it and return to you with their reaction. This is called feedback. It’s an important part of marketing your “product.” It can be scary and anxiety-inducing, but you need that feedback. Some people call such feedback “notes.” And notes can be truly wonderful or horrifying.

Mostly they’re horrifying.

Why? Because eight out of ten times (or more) all that work you just did will have been scrutinized through someone else’s lens and must be reconsidered and revised and rewritten some more.

Welcome to Hollywood.

You want to be a writer? Write!

Here’s what I believe: The only difference between a wannabe writer and an actual writer is that the writer writes. And the only difference between a writer and a professional writer is that the professional has figured out how to convince others to pay him or her for their work.

So, what are you doing reading this?  Get writing!

“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”
~Thomas Mann

What’s your biggest challenge as a writer, and how do you overcome it? Share in the comments below!