What You Need to Ask Yourself to Be a Successful Writer
What You Need to Ask Yourself to Be a Successful Writer
The one non-bullshit question that will make you a great writer
The one non-bullshit question that will make you a great writer
Here is the question you need to ask yourself:
How can I win the game I am trying to play?
It’s not the most intuitive question, so let me unpack what I mean by it.
We start by imitating others
That’s how we get better. We become writers because we love writing. We are readers first and writers second. We read something that changes our lives, then we ask could I create something this meaningful?
Then we ask how
How can I create beautiful, inspiring, raw, widely loved, emotional, life-changing work? We answer the how by copying and stealing. This is a necessary step, we imitate the things we love. We learn by deconstructing, analyzing, and integrating.
Then we hit a plateau.
Although we get better, we never create that life-changing thing we were hoping for. Hitting this plateau, most people quit. But, you haven’t.
You’ve been told you are good, but you know deep down inside that you aren’t great. You are trying to get better, but it seems like the climb is endless. The further you walk up the mountain, the farther the peak appears. You are asking the question I am asking myself.
How can I be one of the greats?
It’s a hard lesson to learn, but to be great you have to realize all the tactics you’ve used to get better up to this point will not work anymore. Going from good → great is a different game than going from bad → good. Instead of trying to get better, you have to ask yourself:
What game am I try to play?
Are you trying to make readers cry with your story? Are you trying to make them laugh out loud? Or are you trying to get published? All these are different games and you should learn to play one at a time. You need to understand what counts as a win for you. If x amount of people like your post will that count as a win? If your friend tells you that your blogpost changed their life does that count as a win? These goals will change your tactics. You will obviously approach getting lots of likes differently than you would approaching changing just one person’s life.
Whatever your goals, try to create little goals for yourself to get wins early and fast. For example, you have to learn how to change one person’s life before you can learn how to change thousands. Then after you win that little game, you can make your game slightly bigger.
Be fucking kind to yourself
You need to always remind yourself why you are writing and remind yourself that it is very difficult. Each little game you win calls for a celebration! You are beautiful. And you are working towards something great. Self doubt, depression, and anger may creep in, but learn to build the systems to manage it. Your health/self-care is always more important than your writing. Because your health makes your authentic writing possible. More than anything else you are trying to do something great, something beautiful. You are trying to change people’s lives by baring your soul.
This is a tough game. But if you want to learn to be a better writer. If you want to make others feel even a fraction of what you felt when you read your favorite book, then remember this question…
How can I win the game I am trying to play?
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