Three Killer Enemies You Must Overcome to Succeed in Writing

From experience, I have learned to guard against three key enemies to writing success. The enemies are worry, perfectionism and procrastination.

Worry

I came face to face with worry when I was hired as a writer for a large, countrywide newspaper. My first assignment concerned a subject I knew very well. That fact however, didn’t stop me worrying. Did I really know enough or was I just going to embarrass myself? I gave my completed copy to the editor-a lively nice man whose articles I had admired. He quickly read through, smiled, and, settling on his chair, he started to work on the cover of the newspaper’s magazine. My article was to be the cover story. And the charming editor told me: This is a great story! I’ll make you a big name!”

But that didn’t stop me worrying some more: What if the readers didn’t like my story! The editor would be embarrassed and I would be embarrassed all the more!

At a recent meeting, one writer told us about how he was troubled by worries. “I wrote my story and kept it there on the table and then started worrying. I worried about the content- was it really useful? Did I say anything new?

“These worries stopped me sending the article to an editor even though I had already talked to him and he had asked me to send it to him,” he told us.

The worry didn’t stop when the writer eventually mastered enough courage to send the article to the editor. It was worse when the editor didn’t respond quickly.

“I berated myself. I told myself: “That”s what happens when you try to do things that you can’t do. You get mushy and platitudinous.’ Conversations with myself were drearily repetitive as a week went by and I heard nothing from the editor. Why didn’t he call or send a rejection slip?”

Perfectionism

The second enemy is called perfectionism. It is an attempt to attain unrealistically high standards, generally self-imposed. As a starting writer, I wanted to write stories that sparkled. I took a long time working on “one piece” as journalists like to refer to stories. One day the editor exclaimed, “My dear young man: A story for a newspaper is not a work of art. Don’t bother with perfection, bother with the facts.” Then he reminded me of the journalists’ cliché: A perfect story that comes after the newspaper has gone to press is useless.

Of course, you should try to produce as perfect a story as you possibly can within a reasonable time.

Procrastination

The third enemy is called procrastination. Wikipedia describes procrastination as “… a type of behavior that is characterized by deferment of actions or tasks to a later time.” And what is worse, this behavior can become a habit. Among its results for the individual, according to Wikipidea is loss of personal productivity.

The most common reasons for procrastination, for most writers, are a feeling that you don’t have enough facts to write or fear that you don’t know how to write well. You should, of course, make sure that you have your facts. You should however remember that all writing is done without “all the facts.” If you actually don’t know how to write, take a course in writing, but be careful not too hard on yourself.

Set yourself a deadline, too. I have found it works well if you tell your friends about your writing assignment and your deadline. That way, you’re putting pressure on yourself to stay within your writing schedule.