5 Ways To Write Consistently After Receiving A Lot Of Rejections
5) “Just keep swimming.”
Rejections. One of the many fears of most writers is to get their hard work rejected all the time. I think it’s the main reason why most writers are quitting, they just didn’t get the result that they wanted.
There is a way to get over this obstacle, that’s if you still see yourself as a writer in the near future.
If you have been following me, you’ll notice that I don’t post everyday. It’s because I write once a day and my articles are often rejected by big publications that have lots of submissions from different writers. When it’s accepted, it’s usually articles I wrote days before.
I got more rejections than acceptance at this point, and that’s fine. I still want to write daily despite the many rejections I receive.
I did think of quitting, but after doing careful thinking, I decided not to give up on this writing business yet.
Writing is hard, I admit. But that doesn’t mean I want to stop doing it, after all, I’ve already come this far. In Indonesia, we call it “Sayang”, a term we use that it’s just sad that we got this far only to quit.
So I read articles, asked for advice from others, and read interviews about this business. And I came up with my own solution to overcome the dread of quitting.
1) Remember Why You Started
Take a look at all the successful publications today. Many had a vision of what their publication wanted to be known as, that’s how they were able to reach the top. Although money is an important motivation for this, that isn’t the strongest reason why they chose to write.
I just spoke with Adrian Drew a week ago, and he told me that the value you give to others is more important. This is a way to focus on consistency rather than dwelling in the past because you didn’t earn as much as you hoped for.
If you first write to earn money, my suggestion is to try to think about what problems you want to solve for readers. How to live a healthy life, about IT, programming, you name it.
Writing is like being an entrepreneur where you solve people’s problems by providing solutions for them. That’s when the money will come later on.
Profit will come after you give something to the audience, so it’s best to focus on what value you can give to the readers today.
2) Forget The Money
“Spend less time on finance, spend less time in conference rooms, less time on PowerPoint, and more time just trying to make your product as amazing as possible.” — Elon Musk, 2020.
Oftentimes, there are people comparing their earnings with other top writers and that’s really unhealthy for their progress.
That culture needs to stop right now, people have their own journey on how they were able to reach that far and what value they give. Some managed to be successful in a few months, some may take years.
One thing for sure, this writing business is not an overnight success. If it is, everyone would do it. We truly need to learn to be patient and just do the best we can today. Forget that you are even earning money from it, profit will come once you create values for readers.
So once again, think about what you can solve for someone. People want to have takeaways after they read something, they want to feel inspired, and that’s every writer's job.
3) Write As If It’s Your Last Day
If today were the last of your life, would you do what you were going to do today? — Steve Jobs.
This is how I convince myself to try to keep writing every day. I have a full-time job, so writing is really my side hustle and I try to make time for it. Sometimes I would miss a day or two because of work, so I did my best to write as if it’s my last day.
And when I do have the time to write, I want to make sure that, in my eyes, it’s great. Quality over quantity, people! If the quality is bad, readers won’t even want to read what you wrote.
I once wrote an article on how Stephen King got himself to write consistently, so I took his advice to heart and try to write every day.
I try to get six pages a day. So with a book like End of Watch, when I’m working, I work everyday. 3–4 hours, and I try to get those six pages and I try to get them fairly clean. So if the manuscript is, let’s say, 360 pages long, that’s basically two months work. It’s concentrated but that’s assuming that it goes well. — Stephen King, 2018
Re-read your work, proofread, just give out the best you can. Don’t worry about not being able to make it perfect, otherwise, you won’t publish anything because of that fear.
4) Rejection Is A Bump On The Road
“Even today, we still have a lot of people rejected…(but) we keep on fighting; we keep on changing ourselves.” — Jack Ma.
Stephen King writes novels. No matter how many pages he writes, he won’t be able to know what people may think about the pages or if it’s going to sell because he had to write the whole book to find out.
So imagine his frustration if his books are rejected multiple times after working hard on them for months.
JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected 13 times before it was successful, so imagine her frustrations, especially when she was trying to overcome depression and a single mother.
And then there is us, who writes blogs.
So really, as cheesy as it sounds, rejection is a great way to know what we are missing in a piece to make something better.
Some people overlook it as ‘maybe it’s not good enough’ and then they stop writing. Change that mindset to ‘what should be improved here?’. Now, that’s problem-solving, just like entrepreneurs.
5) “Just Keep Swimming”
“When life gets you down do you wanna know what you’ve gotta do? Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming.” — Dory, Finding Nemo.
I hate to be the one advising this because I too hate that phrase, but really, working hard is the key to all this. There are many writers out there who want to be at the top as well and to stand out, you really need to do your research and work hard on it.
As I said before, a writer’s life is not an overnight success and it’s a tough business to be in. There are many obstacles along the way, and that’s what we must find out how to get through it. And really, “just keep swimming”.
Conclusion
I once wrote an article where George RR Martin, author of Game of Thrones, shared with us his struggle of being an author:
“It (writing) is a career for gamblers. Every time you write a book, it’s like throwing a dice again.” — George R.R. Martin, 2019
And,
“You‘re gonna work on projects that you love and people won’t understand what you’re doing.’”— George R.R. Martin, 2019
But because George was inspired to share his world and imaginations with us, it motivated him to keep his career as a writer (and he nearly switched to real estate).
Therefore:
- Remember why you started
- Don’t think about how much you are now earning
- Write as if it’s your last day
- Rejection is a bump on the road
- “Just keep swimming”
It’s all the more reason for us to think about the present.
Perhaps people got too caught up about the future expectations on this business that made them give up writing, so it’s best not to think of the past or the future and just focus on now.
I hope that this helps you to keep writing!