#58: How to Affirm Your Own Writing Life
Some days, you wake up and feel like you can finish a novel in a month\u2014and it\u2019s not even November, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)! Or you feel so on fire\xa0you could pitch and land an essay in The Paris Review\xa0and\xa0The New Yorker.\n\nThen there are the other days.\n\nOn those days, you might have gotten a rejection from the magazine you queried. Or your writing group shredded your latest short story. Or your own self-doubt douses the fire and fills your mind with negativity. You feel dragged down and depressed.\n\nI touched on those days in Episode 56, when you\u2019re questioning why you ever thought you could write. When you feel like hanging it up \u2019cause you don\u2019t think you have what it takes. On those days, you have to fight through that and refuse to listen to the voices and instead, create a volume of work. You\u2019ve got to keep writing, even when you\u2019re not on fire. Even when you have nothing more than a glimmer of hope, like a tiny flickering ember buried under the ash heap, about to go out.\n\nThat\u2019s when you need to affirm reality to combat the discouraging lies.\n\nYou need to remember what\u2019s true.\n\nBecause this writing life can be brutal.\n\nThe publishing world and the process of entering in feels a little like grade school gym glass or a dating game: "Pick me! Pick me!" or "Do you like me?" We submit to publishers\u2014could be a book, could be an essay, could be a poem or article. The process is similar. We submit and wait and hope that maybe\xa0this time someone will feel an affinity with our\xa0work. Maybe\xa0someone will take a chance and offer a contract. Maybe.\n\nOr not. And they send a rejection.\n\n"Sorry, but we\u2019re going to pass."\n\n"Doesn\u2019t fit our editorial requirements at this time."\n\n"After careful consideration, we\u2019re not accepting it for publication and hope you find a good fit for your work."\n\nDon\u2019t base your worth or talent or future on a rejection. Feel free to revisit your work a few days later, after you\u2019ve had a good cry, and see if you can improve anything. It\u2019s possible your piece would benefit from edits.\n\nBut most of the time, a rejection simply means that one\xa0editor on one\xa0day at one\xa0publication is turning down this one\xa0submission.\n\nSo on a good day\u2014it doesn\u2019t have to be your on fire day; it can just be a regular old good day (maybe that\u2019s today)\u2014sit down with a pen and notebook, or a computer screen, or a typewriter and paper, whatever you use, and take on an assignment. You\u2019re going to write something with a special reader in mind:\n\nYou.\n\nThe future you.\n\nThe you who is going to doubt himself.\n\nThe you whose writing group is about to shoot down a poem you spent weeks revising.\n\nThe you who might wake up tomorrow and think, \u201cI\u2019m not a writer. Why even try?\u201d\n\nThe you-on-a-good-day\u2014which might be right now\u2014can take time to sit down and write accurate, affirming statements. You need these on the hard days, to remind you of what\u2019s true.\n\nPeople of any age, especially people who are struggling with self-confidence, like writers, can benefit from positive, true statements about their strengths and abilities and worth. Affirmations do that.\n\nSo the current you, in a good place, sets up to coach the future you, when you\u2019re in a hard place, by composing what some life coaches and creativity coaches call, as I said, \u201caffirmations.\u201d I was reminded of them recently in a book by creativity coach Eric Maisel, and by life coach Amanda Foust,\xa0who urges parents to use affirmations with themselves and their kids.\n\nToday, when you\u2019re feeling strong and clear-minded, think of\xa0some things that are true about you, about your writing, and about writing in general. I\u2019ll offer some suggestions here and present them in first person, so you can say them to yourself, if you'd like:\n\n \tI am a writer. And writers write.\xa0Today, regardless of how I\u2019m feeling, I will write.\n \tOnly writers who risk rejection even have a chance at publishing success.\n \tWhen I get an acceptance and when I get a rejec...