7 Secrets of Highly Persistent Writers
By Guest | April 30, 2015 |
Please welcome Jordan Rosenfeld, author of five books and hundreds of articles published in places such as: AlterNet, the New York Times, Publisher’s Weekly, The Rumpus, Salon, the Washington Post, The Weeklings, and Writer’s Digest magazine. She is mom to a left-handed 6-year-old boy and a hand-talker fond of hyperbole.
I’m a poster child for persistence, having taken just about every circuitous route, side-alley and back door to publishing success you can imagine. My persistence led to the publication of my new book: A Writer’s Guide to Persistence (Writer’s Digest Books), which is both a love letter to writers and a gentle prod to keep at it.
Connect with Jordan on her blog, on Facebook, and on Twitter.
7 Secrets of Highly Persistent Writers
There are always going to be blockbuster writers who make success look easy, but comparison will leave you feeling empty and uncertain. And there are countless how-to books and many more online seminars that claim to have the bullet proof answer to publishing fame and fortune. But the only successful strategy I’ve ever seen work for writers to achieve their writing and publishing goals is persistence.
And what, precisely is persistence? Is it something you’re born with, a gene that switches on as soon as you take your first English class? Of course not. Persistence is an attitude of flexibility and curiosity, rooted in passion or love for your craft, bolstered by treating your entire writing journey as a practice. In a practice, you are working a little bit every day (and sometimes a lot), and you focus on the moment more than the end goal.
[pullquote]…The only successful strategy I’ve ever seen work for writers to achieve their writing and publishing goals is persistence. And what, precisely is persistence? Is it something you’re born with, a gene that switches on as soon as you take your first English class? Of course not.[/pullquote]
Here are seven secrets of highly persistent writers that you can adopt too:
- Forget About Success: The most persistent writers want success as much as anyone, but they treat it as an end goal and put their focus on doing the work itself. It’s easy to be lured by that siren song of potential fame and fortune our society dangles before anyone in the creative arts, but so few realize right away. Ironically, the most successful writers are often the ones who think the least about success and focus on the daily practice of pen (or keyboard) to page.
- Never Wait in Vain: Waiting for a publication, a publisher, or agent to get back to you can be agonizing. Persistent writers don’t just wait; they keep writing and submitting in equal measure. The more your focus is on what you’re producing, and not checking the email or snail-mail box, the more good writing you’ll eventually get done.
Take Risks: All writers have a comfort zone, be it genre or topic, or a certain kind of character. There’s nothing wrong with writing from your wheelhouse. But there’s great power in exploring the unknown, a territory of almost alchemical possibilities for expanding your own skills, or going somewhere surprising in your work. This can be trying your hand at an essay when you’ve always written stories, or finally writing those deep, painful stories. You want to take healthy risks, those that expand and stretch you, not discourage and thwart you. Go where you feel electricity, energy, desire, and trust yourself to rise to the occasion.
- Collaborate: Persistent writers accept that we need other writers—be it for cheerleading, or resource sharing, feedback or commiseration. Writing is often a lonely art and it’s easy to listen to the critical voices in your own head. Don’t forget to call on the writers in your cohort to help you up out of the ditch of despair or brainstorm, or offer you feedback you know you can trust.
- Set boundaries: Persistent writers have to say no a lot. They say no to allowing interruptions to their writing time; to letting the wrong people read their work; to social activities in favor of writing time. They learn to treat writing time as work time.
- Take Side-Doors and Back-Alleys: Some of the most persistent writers I know did not listen to only accepted advice. I know writers who sold books straight to publishers without an agent. Those who self-published first and caught the attention of a big publisher. Those who freelance wrote for local publications and worked their way up to big publications bit by bit. If you only take a proscribed path, you’ll only have one set of experiences; make your own path and find your own version of success.
- Plant a Passion Root: I saved the best and most important piece of advice for last. You will persist if you plant what I call a “passion root.” If you’ve ever tried to take out a rose bush, you know that their roots are impossibly deep and indestructible and they will come back to life even after being cut down to the nub. Plant your own roots of purpose deep in the ground of meaning. Something drives you to write, brings you back to it when it’s hard, makes the challenges worthwhile, but it probably gets lost in the critical voices, the difficult days, after rejection, etc. Your passion root can be something such as: writing gives you a voice when you never had one; you feel you’re making a contribution to the world or a certain cause through writing; you feel most alive when you write. It doesn’t matter if your passion is a means to a financial end or just your deepest desire. Following what you love most about writing will help you stick to it through all the hardships.
Try to remember that everything you do for your writing practice is like collecting individual rain drops in a bucket. On their own, each sentence, each story, each bright, tiny moment of success may not seem like much, but they add up to so much more than you can see at any given moment. If you’re always looking ahead and never back at the accumulation, you’ll miss out on what you’ve already accomplished.
Your joys, your obsessions, your curiosities and interests are deeply important in persisting at a writing practice. Where can you draw passion from about what or why you write? What burns hotly inside you and needs to be expressed? And who are the people who can best support you in doing this?
Many thanks to today’s guest.
You can read more WU guest posts by visiting this link.
Jordan, you totally nailed it in this post. I loved it! And better yet, I began to picture a skydiver in my mind, one who hops in a small plane and jumps whenever she gets the opportunity. For me, writing is riskier than skydiving, and a consistent thrill. It’s the thrill of persistence. Does that make sense to you? More than once, when asked why I write, I’ve replied, “Because I can’t not.” I know you relate to that one… Thanks for a wonderful start to my day of writing!
Unfortunately, it took be 15 years to understand that I needed patience and persistence. I think we all hit that point where we either give up or realize that we have not been wasting our time and that it will pay off. Maybe not in piles of money, but in the satisfaction of doing something we love and doing it well. I’ve found that, even in the gold rush of indie publishing, there are no shortcuts (many, many, try for the shortcut, which explains the horrible reputation). It takes the same peristence and practice to successfully self-publish as it does to traditionally publish. A well-guarded secret. Or maybe just a well-ignored one.
Thanks for an inspiring post..
Oh Ron, I hear you, but it’s nowhere near too late!
I found myself nodding all through this post. Having been on this journey for 40 years and having published only one small devotional, I have seen these secrets exemplified over and over again.
Thank you for putting it so cogently and for reinforcing what I thought I already knew. We can’t hear this mantra often enough.
Persistence and passion are the keys. One writes because one cannot not write.
This post makes me feel like I’m galloping across a field with a sword held high above my head. Yeah! Of course, I have a notebook and pen tucked inside my breastpocket, which I’ll use to write when we stop by the stream to take a break. Thank you!
Love your analogy, Vijaya!
thank you all for your comments! Your passion inspires my own!
I love this post, because I live by these words. Several of my friends chose self-publishing over traditional because they did not want to wait. Not that I have anything against self-publishing, mind you, it’s a great path for some — just not for me. Whenever someone asks me why I wait and wait and wait, always writing more books, I tell them: Because I want my ‘dream come true’. I’ll wait as long as it takes. To me, that time is never wasted. It’s a time to grow, learn, and do what I love… write. Persistence is my middle name. Which fits nicely with my rhino skin. :-)
“Plant a passion root.” This says it all for me. The idea of something personal and meaningful that compels us to keep writing through self-doubt and fear. I also felt reinforced by what you said about boundaries. This has been challenging for me. Big family. Lots of ‘stuff’ always going on. I’ve grown pretty tough in this area over the years. On the outside anyway, (someone mentioned Rhino skin?) Inside, I still feel a twinge sometimes, depending on what I’m saying no to. But it passes. Thanks for a wonderful and important post..
I bought Jordan’s book, and it is like getting a friend and a mentor and cohort and a cattle prod, all at the same time. I think the most often overlooked “secret of success” of even the best known writers is just “I didn’t quit.”
Love her new book!
This is a great post! Thank you!
After many rejections, I kept on writing. Now I find myself with six novels and many (guessing 30-40) short stories. And I’m self-publishing my first novel this year!
I contend that authors/creatives that “make it” may not be the only best out there, but they didn’t give up!
Inspiring post, Jordan. The desire to write is strong and the desire to have someone read our work is a necessary part of the process. You wrote: Try to remember that everything you do for your writing practice is like collecting individual rain drops in a bucket. YES. And so I have gone ahead and will be publishing a collection of short stories with a small press. I’m excited and you will understand what doing that does for me: makes me get right back to the keyboard. Wishing all writers joy in the moment of that decision.
What a great, untraditional definition of persistence. I particularly like the advice to work in the moment . . . enjoy crafting that sentence. Before you know it, you’ve crafted a bucket full of sentences and taken pleasure in the process.
Fantastic post, thank you. My husband, who’s been a professional artist for over 20 years, has taught me a lot about the link between persistence and success. (And we think OUR industry is tough!) :) Often the people who succeed are those who didn’t give up.
I also think your 7th point is critical. We have to understand WHY we’re doing this and what success looks like for us. I think that’s how we find the right path.
Thanks again for a much-needed, articulate post.
Thank you for this empowering post, Jordan. I especially what you said about planting a passion root.
I’ve always written. It’s something I need to do, every day. But establishing a successful career, at times, seems unreachable. When it does I remind myself that I’m on a journey not in a race. All I have to do is keep walking–writing, revising, submitting.
Posts like yours help, Jordan.
Hi, Jordan:
I’m lucky in one sense that my previous day job — private investigation — proved to me the value of persistence.
Someone recently asked: How did you get people to talk to you? I answered: I kept coming back until they opened the door, then I very politely refused to go away.
Similarly, re: writing, someone asked: How do you market yourself? I answered: I yodel into the void. If the void is busy, I move on to the abyss.
Meanwhile, I write the next book.
Thanks for the kick in the pants.
Wonderful advice, Jordan, and well timed. I am currently in my publisher’s ‘waiting room’, where writing the next book is the only thing keeping me (somewhat) sane. Cheers to patience!
Dee Willson
Author of A Keeper’s Truth & GOT
So much wisdom in this post! Thank you. I especially loved the first “secret” — which I think isn’t a secret at all, hehe, just a really hard lesson to learn — and this line:
“Go where you feel electricity, energy, desire, and trust yourself to rise to the occasion.”
Great Post.
What you’ve said here, I have recently rediscovered myself. Thanks for the on-time confirmation that I am moving in the right direction.
I like the passion root analogy too. Many times I have self-sabotage and tried to pull my rosebush up only to find it to regrow months later.
This time, I am taking care it and nurturing its growth instead of giving up or thinking that I’m wasting my time.
Thanks again for this post.
V.
Jordan,
You’re always fabulous, but I love that your new focus is on persistence. That is THE most important quality a writer (human?) can have, isn’t it? I also love the passion root concept. I’m going to be thinking about that.
Xo
Danielle
Jordan, nice to see you in these here parts. Being a guy that’s gone through a gaggle of side-doors into back alleys (that then had basements and attics), I’ve felt the tides of all seven of your secret seas.
My passion root is that I so often feel the electricity of what beautiful language—story, essay, speech—does to the pleasure centers of my brain. So many great authors, so many luminous moments. So I want to do that in readers myself. Tough, but worth continuing the effort.
Excellent post, Jordan! I love the passion root idea. I’m printing this article to keep.
All of you have just improved my day immensely–I recently came back from a conference of cis and gender non-conforming women in media and the theme of the weekend was definitely persistence–but always, always persistence backed by passion and belief in the work or the idea. It’s not instant, and it does require time and effort, but there are lots of kinds of work that feel good in the doing, am I right?
Thank you all.
Jordan
Very timely! I was just asking myself the same question yesterday: why do I write? Wouldn’t my life be a lot easier if I gave up writing and promoting my novels? I could take a part-time job at Safeway instead and have the rest of the week free to play with my horses and my vegetable garden. I seriously considered giving up writing – for a few seconds, at least.
But I draw a great deal of satisfaction and a sense of achievement, not only from the process of writing (which can also be painful and frustrating), but also from publishing a new novel. Hearing back from readers puts the icing on the cake. A job at Safeway might bring me a steady paycheck, but once I stop putting in my hours, the paycheck disappears. With writing, although I’m now struggling with the first chapter of my fifth novel, readers are still discovering my first book and letting me know how much they like the series. That’s what I’m talkin’ about!
I think we all need a challenge of some sort to keep life interesting. Whether it’s improving your golf game, planning to visit a new part of the world, creating a patchwork quilt or teaching your dog a new trick, you need something to motivate you to get up every morning and at the end of the day, to give you the satisfaction that you’ve made good use of your time. Writing is my main thing.
Why feel passionate about writing murder mysteries? I don’t know. It’s not a quest for fame, and it’s not a love of money. I guess it’s because one of my biggest pleasures in life has always been reading a good book, usually a murder mystery. It still is.
Thanks for posting!
WOOT! Go Jordan. This is right on. And, good to see you as a contributor on WU.
Still working on that novel we poured over in your class. Getting there, though.
Best,
Robin
The one piece of advice that resonates with me is the first one “Forget about success”. I think that in itself that holds a lot of magic. I know it is hard to forget about success-the main reason what get you started with all this.Whether is writing the newest best selling book, or the best reading material ever, or admiration, having a blockbuster movie made out of it, or just loads of cash-any success, is it really what drives you? Put this way, do you think any of the actors who won Oscars thought of winning one while they were performing? Do you even think that is possible? Do you think acting a touching scene produces the most subtle results while the actor is thinking of success or sinking in the situation? It is the same writing a book. Do you think you would do your best while writing under a certain reason or let yourself go and get sunk in. Which do you think produces best results. “just forget about it” :)
Excellent post and comments.
I’m on my journey as well and I’m happy where I’m at with my writing, thanks to readers.
I am persistent, I have perseverance, and I’m pretty well patient. lol
Good tips. I wish my kids would follow this list.
Jordan, I enjoyed this post so much. You’ve inspired me to push on even though I was on the brink of tossing in the towel. Just bought your book and looking forward to further inspiration!
Wonderful post, Jordan.
Thanks for sharing. Persistence is absolutely vital for any writer. Particularly like your ‘passion root’ tip. Will certainly check out your book!
While I 100% agree with everything you said (and thank you for the inspiring article), I think the problem with success (and money) is that we don’t necessarily want them for ourselves. I love the process of writing and finishing novels. I love the moment when I can forget the rest of the world and exist in the world populated by my characters.
What I like a lot less is when some member of the family (it could also be a friend, your mom, you dad, you uncle or whoever) tells you that what you do is useless, that you’re wasting your time while you could date/work/do house chores/whatever instead. This is why certain writers (me included, I admit), get obsessed with success. For validation. To gain legitimacy in the eyes of others who won’t stop judging you and what you do (often without reading a single line).
This hurts. More than I’m willing to admit most of the time. And this is the main source of my doubts.
useful