Staying Motivated in a Writing Career

By Dale T. Phillips

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“People of mediocre ability sometimes achieve outstanding success because they don’t know when to quit. Most people succeed because they are determined to. Persevere and get it done.”

—George Allen

Staying Motivated

Think of it this way: Failure is a single event, while success is a process.

You should realize (if you hadn’t before) that the road to success is a long, constant journey, not a short sprint to a nearby finish line. Many writers quit before achieving success, including some who were close and would have made it with just a bit more effort. You never know how close you are, where the tipping point will be. In the past couple of years, two of my favorite writers suddenly broke into top-level, best-seller, well-deserved, breakout success after many years of toiling in the trenches. It seemed to happen overnight, and yet they’d been working diligently for years to make it happen and had a number of excellent books out.

Why are you writing? To make money, win awards, get famous? Those are external goals, out of your control. What you can control is your production, your author brand, and how hard you’re willing to work. If you’re not having fun, and it’s taking a toll on your life, it may not be the thing you think you wanted. But if you have that need to write, to get your stories out to the world, you’ll keep going. 

How does one persist when success seems unobtainable? One book I highly recommend is Motivate Your Writing!: Using Motivational Psychology to Energize Your Writing Life, by Stephen Kelner. He’s also married to a writer, so he knows his stuff. 

Before my first novel was published, I was chomping at the bit to get it out. Publication seemed just out of reach for several years, and I had to prod myself to keep going. One Christmas I printed out the book draft, put the pages in a binder, wrapped it, and gave it to myself as a Christmas gift. Though my family thought it strange, it was terrific motivation and gave me a boost to continue thinking about the day when I would hold a real print copy of my first novel. That day came, and many more of amazing success. One Christmas, I had three unfinished novels, another I wanted to write, and hadn’t published enough work in too long a while. So, I printed title covers, attached them to other books, wrapped them, and gave them to myself as more gifts, as a promise and a commitment that I’d get to work and finish and publish them. 

I’m motivated by the stories of amazing writers (and other artists, musicians, entertainers, and creative people) of talent who had a much tougher time of it, who struggled to get published and make a living in years past. Now we can get published whenever we want, but the hard part is getting sold and read. Inspirational quotes and success stories help keep me going. I look outside writing, to success and motivation gurus, to see if I can use techniques for success from other walks of life. By keeping a positive attitude, you can push through the dark days. The habit of success keeps you on track when you encounter setbacks. Do not allow events to stop you. Learn the power of the word NO when asked for things that will suck up your time if they prevent you from finishing projects. 

Chart Your Success

Because our minds gloss over the day-to-day, the usual and familiar, it’s quite useful to keep a writing log for recording what steps you take and see how much you do over time. Writing a book may seem like it goes on forever, so keep logs of what you do, to keep on track and motivated. 

This can be as simple as making a time and word count entry in a notebook, or in a spreadsheet or document on a computer. You want to build momentum, so that a string of days of writing encourages you to do more. Each day that you’ve put new words down is a success! It’s great to look at the accumulated results after a few months of work, and it truly feels like accomplishment. 

You should also keep track of other parts of writing activities and successes. Publications, new editions, acceptances, good reviews, big sales, milestones reached, all that and more come together into a success chart. Record what advances you’ve made, and they will mount up into a tidal wave. You want to look back and see that you’ve made progress. Little steps in the right direction for big results.

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Dale T. Phillips has published novels, story collections, non-fiction, and over 80 short stories. Stephen King was Dale's college writing teacher, and since then, Dale has found time to appear on stage, television, radio, in an independent feature film, and compete on Jeopardy (losing in a spectacular fashion). He's a member of the Mystery Writers of America and the Sisters in Crime. He's traveled to all 50 states, Mexico, Canada, and through Europe.

www.daletphillips.com