The Writer’s Hurdles

It Looks Easy

One of the things your average writer has to deal with is the fact that there are so many people who feel themselves capable of doing the job. The writing profession is one of those things that seems open to anybody who has ever read a book and who has a computer or typewriter handy. What are books but collections of words, right? Don’t most of us know some words? I know words therefore I am able to write. Of course basketball is running and throwing a basketball, and most people can do that right? But not everybody is ready for the NBA. 

It looks easy, which means that unless you find a way to stand out from the millions who write, who feel themselves capable of doing it professionally, you will get no respect, and, in all likelihood, continue require a day-job. 

The Solitude

In order to set yourself apart one of the things you will need is concentration, the ability to concentrate, and the conditions for concentration. The conditions are, solitude, and silence, and stretches of uninterrupted time. For most people this is almost impossible to find. They have families and responsibilities, and noisy neighbors. Serious writing, the kind not done to meet word-counts, not to win prizes, and not to impress an editor, but rather as a means of expression, of putting your truest deepest feelings into the words which express them best, that needs a deep focus, and intensity that is almost trance-like. If you write and have written for a long time then you know what I mean. You have, in all likelihood, felt your imagination and subconscious take over a piece so that it feels like your fingers are moving by themselves. This is rare, and almost impossible to find without being alone with no distractions for long periods of time. Trying to find this place is a reason lots of writers drink and/or smoke.

The Necessity

If you don’t have to write, then you are not a writer. If you don’t have that compulsion to fill up an empty page, to tap out a vision on your keyboard with or without the prospect of selling it, with or without endorsement and praise from readers, then you don’t know what this craft is about. A carpenter sees a piece of wood and instantly the potential in it, and a need to carve it out, comes to him, a knitter sees yarn and feels the same way. A writer sees a laptop, or a typewriter and the fingers twitch, the mind comes to life. You crave the feeling of pen scratching paper, or the feeling of your fingers on a keyboard struggling to keep up with your brain. 

Writer’s Block

This is when the ideas stop coming, and everything feel feels forced. You can find no way to start a piece that feels natural. It is the complete opposite of the feeling mentioned above where the words seem to come out with no effort. It’s like trying to write in a crowded room or surrounded by other people while having to interact with them. 

The Fact That You Will Probably Never “Make It Big”

Success in the writing game, like in every other profession, has little to do with being talented. Professional success has to do with the lengths you will go to to promote your work, to get attention, while being able to produce great quantities of quality work, and networking. If you are a brilliant writer, but are lacking in the other areas, the odds are heavily against you ever being noticed. There are too many editors who are merely failed writers looking to inflict their bitterness on others, and too much competition. You have to write with the knowledge that you will probably never be recognized if it happens to be any good. This is where the necessity noted above comes in handy, then you write regardless of the career prospects.