Why Does It Take So Long?

Whenever you feel discouraged about your lack of writing success, consider the Chinese bamboo tree. When you plant this tiny shoot, you can expect no growth for up to four years. Even though you water it faithfully, there are no signs that the tree is growing or maturing or will ever amount to anything. But if you keep tending the Chinese bamboo seedling all during those somewhat discouraging years, you can expect as much as 80 feet of growth in the fifth year! The tree could never support that rapid growth without a deep root system. Those early growing years, when it appears as if nothing much is happening, are rooting and grounding years.

It is the same with your writing career.

False Expectations

“We may fear failing, but we don’t expect to fail,” say Sarah Edwards and Paul Edwards, authors of Secrets of Self-Employment. “We expect success to be right around the corner.”

And it’s easy to see where we get that idea. TV shows, movies, and soap operas have depicted writers whose first novels were instant best-sellers. Each novel took only a few weeks to write and was sold on the basis of an outline. Each unpublished author had an editor holding his or her hand throughout the writing process (with many face-to-face luncheons to discuss THE NOVEL), then arranging a national book-signing tour.

Oh, puh-leeze.

We need to face the fact that a writing career seldom blooms as it does in Hollywood. More often it takes long, lonely years when you’re tempted to quit dozens of times. It’s at those times we most need to understand about learning and publishing curves and why it takes so long. It seems like such a struggle for us, when it has apparently been easy for oth­ers. But it’s a mistake to compare your publishing curve to other writers, those you know and especially those you read about. You must understand that your particular “success path” will be strictly your own.

Sprinters

I have known a few writers who sold the very first story they wrote. Truly instant success. One was a friend. I had been telling him how hard writing was, how impossible the odds of get­ting published were—and then he wrote and sold his first story. Was I jealous? You bet! Did I understand why it took me so much longer? No. However, in the long run, I think early success helped set him up for failure. I received 30-plus rejections before I sold my first article. My friend tried a couple more times to sell something, got rejected, and quit. So even though overnight success may look appealing, it doesn’t always root and ground you in the writing process, or give you the patience and persistence that will be required later.

People who experience overnight success sometimes have another problem as well. Friends and family expect a series of repeat performances from someone who isn’t necessarily sure how she succeeded the first time. The pressure to perform can be intense before sufficient skills have been acquired to support the writing. This pressure easily becomes a block. Quitting often follows shortly. So while overnight success may sound appealing, it comes with its own set of problems.

Tortoises

The tortoise approach is often ultimately the most successful, but it can take so lo-o-o-o-ong to succeed that discouragement can set in. Picture again that Chinese bamboo tree. It is sending roots down for years before its sudden rapid upward growth. If you are writing and studying diligently, you are putting down a writer’s roots. It’s a critical time, with little to show others for your efforts.

But if you look closely, you can see progress. You may not be making many sales yet, but there is progress in your writing skills, your marketing skills, your networking. You are building a solid base that will support future growth. It will be comfortable, steady growth too; it will add to your life rather than disrupt it. As one Chinese proverb says, “Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still.”

Look Up!

While we may know intellectually that slow growth is more solid, the delays and detours and rejections attack our emotions and strain our patience. After receiving our third rejection in a week, it can be next to impossible to find a good reason to write today or keep up with mar­kets that don’t seem to want us.

That’s when you need to look up and away. Look up from your desk and your current work and your market guide. Take the long view. Get some perspective. Focus mentally on your goal, your end result, the reason you’re plugging away daily at your craft. Each day you write is like taking another step on the journey. You may not feel as if you’re making progress, but feelings lie. If you’re consistent (and that’s the real key), those steps eventually add up to miles down the writing road.

Each step is important, and each step is taking you down that road. Yes, a few writers will have instant success. They’re like boxes of instant brownies—you just add water, pop them into the microwave for 10 minutes, and voila! They’re ready to eat.

Most of us are the homemade variety, requiring many steps to achieve a tasty result. The time we spend creaming eggs and sugar doesn’t feel like we’re making brownies. The time we spend sifting flour doesn’t, either. Even when all the right ingredients in the right amounts are mixed together, the gooey mess has to go into the oven for 35 minutes. We wait. We drool because we can almost taste success. But provided we didn’t skip important steps or quit somewhere along the way, provided we don’t walk away from the oven because it’s taking too long, eventually we’ll have a wonderful pan of homemade chewy brownies.

Better than instant? I think so. Worth waiting for? Definitely! So is your writing career. Learn the skills. Take things in order. Keep at it. Be patient. Get rooted and grounded. Then prepare yourself for surprising growth and success!

Copyright ©  2002-2007 Kristi Holl.  No part of the electronic media to which this notice is appended may be reproduced or redistributed in any form or manner without the express written permission of Kristi Holl.