Is it the New York Times bestseller list? A Reese’s Book Club pic? Becoming a BookTok sensation? Earning enough to pay off your student loan? Earning enough to quit your day job? Walking the red carpet at your book’s big movie premier with all the hottest stars playing your lead roles?
Those goals all sound great and I wouldn’t begrudge you a single one of them. The problem?
None of them are in your control.
The only things that are in your control are:
- Whether you finish the book you are writing
- The quality of the book you write
- Pitching the book to the right agents and editors
- Surrounding yourself with a supportive community
- Nurturing relationships that will help lift your book up when it comes to market
- Striving to strengthen your craft with each new book or draft
In other words, you get to define success internally. Not externally.
For me, I crave external validation of my work as much as the next writer, but to be truly successful, I have to trust my own barometer. Not an easy lift, but one that gets better the more I work on it. For instance, my most recent success? I finished a giant rewrite and polish of my manuscript last week. It wasn’t easy, but I learned so much about this book as well as found new systems that worked to get me across the finish line. Is it published yet? Has it earned out that imaginary advance yet? Has Reese called yet? Nope. But I basked in my well-earned success all weekend anyway.
Giannis Antetokounmpo is an NBA basketball player whose team lost early in the NBA playoffs this year. When asked if he viewed the season as a failure, he had this to say (watch the video, it’s only 2 minutes and worth your time):
Watch it again and wherever he says sports, replace it with writing.
Take a step back from that initial list above of out of our control measurements of writing success and reflect: What is success for you?
Maybe success is writing five minutes every day for a month when last year you only wrote for five minutes one day a month. Maybe success is planning ahead with a tool like the Author Accelerator Blueprint for a Book to write more efficiently. Maybe success is identifying your story’s point and highlighting that theme during revision. Maybe success is knowing when to ask for help to learn new techniques/craft. Maybe success is sending out five more queries after a rejection. Maybe success is finding a critique partner and being vulnerable by trading pages. Maybe success is as simple as saying “I am a writer” out loud. Maybe success is taking your writing seriously and investing in a course or coach.
The fact is, while getting on the New York Times bestseller list is out of your control, you’ll never get there if you don’t write, don’t finish, or don’t query.
What does it mean to YOU to be successful as a writer?
Now, go and do one thing today to be a successful writer.
Featured photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash
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