Am I Cut Out to Be a Writer?

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a child.

I read voraciously from an early age and was naturally adept at putting words together. From kindergarten to university teachers and professors would consistently present my stories and essays to the rest of the class.

I wish I was encouraged beyond that natural ability, to work at and practice writing. I wish someone had cared enough about me to foster that ability.

Alas, that wasn’t the environment I grew up in.

I was emotionally abused. I had an unstable father who took out his moods on me. I was a failure, a weirdo, and I couldn’t do anything right. I was insulted, yelled at, and demeaned. I spent my entire childhood on pins and needles, wondering when the next explosion was going to come.

Failure was ridiculed. Criticisms were biting and insulting. Successes were largely ignored. I developed low self-esteem, severe emotional insecurity, and a tendency to take constructive criticism as a personal attack and lash out accordingly.

Okay, now re-read the last paragraph before you read the next line:

I want to be a writer!

Rejection

Dad would always criticize my ideas. Whenever I tried to help he’d just reject me, loudly and with a striking invective. It basically paralyzed me for the rest of my life. I couldn’t take a risk. I couldn’t ask a girl out: I’d start shaking, my lip would quiver, I’d break out in cold sweats. I had trouble with job interviews and meeting new people. It was terrifying.

It’s a good thing there’s no rejection involved in writing!

A couple of days ago I submitted a piece to a publication and it was rejected. I’ve been on Medium since December and I haven’t had a rejection before.

I tried to shrug it off but I couldn’t. It was anguish for the rest of the day.

I felt useless. Afraid. Worthless. I felt foolish and amateurish, like Wilbur Smith had just honestly reviewed the first chapter of the fantasy novel I wrote when I was ten.

I was devastated.

Even now, days later, those emotions still linger.

Criticism

In my house, insults were how you communicated. There was no gentle advice or encouragement. If you didn’t do something right the first time, it was an opportunity to attack someone.

I developed an unhealthy relationship with criticism: everything was a personal attack. Someone genuinely trying to help became someone telling me that I wasn’t good enough, that I was stupid, and I’d respond accordingly. I’d become angry, defensive, and hurt. I’d lash out and ruin relationships and employment.

It’s a good thing there’s no criticism involved in writing!

I submit stories that are largely mistake free. It’s something I’m conscious of and put a lot of effort into. Here’s an email I got from a publication recently, the first one like it I’ve received.

“Your story had a lot of grammatical mistakes that needed to be corrected. Make sure you use a grammar correction tool like “Grammarly” It saves us time when you send a story free of mistakes and when the story follows our guidelines.”

My reaction?

“Mistakes? Mistakes? What mistakes? F*ckin’ show me. You show me exactly what I did wrong. I mean, one or two typos, yeah, but a f*ckin’ email? Grammarly? Grammarly is for morons! You’re saying I’m stupid? That I don’t know how to proofread? F*ck you! You’re just a publication on Medium and you don’t know shit! You didn’t even put a period after “Grammarly” in that email, you dicks!”

You see what I’m getting at.

Work

My ability to write manifested at a young age. I was writing stories about the pilgrim’s journey to America in grade two.

But my ability wasn’t encouraged. My parents saw it but didn’t foster a work ethic in me, or encourage me to learn and write more. They just knew it was something I was good at, so whenever I wrote they just expected it to be good.

I developed an all-or-nothing mentality: I was awesome at writing, a prodigy that would take the world by storm, or an unfocused loser who would get nowhere.

Learning about writing — reading articles on how to improve as a writer, taking advice, taking a course — became weakness. If I needed those things it meant I was just another faceless writer in a sea of faceless writers. It meant I wasn’t special, that if I needed to work at it I wasn’t good enough.

It’s a good thing you don’t need to put in work to improve as a writer!

Fear and inadequacy kept me from the work I needed to put in. I wasted my twenties and thirties on half-assed projects that were never finished because I didn’t know what I was doing. Yeah, I could write dialogue and had a knack for description, but what about developing an outline? What about sentence structure? What about education?

I was afraid. If I had to work and learn like all the other millions of wannabe writers, it meant that I was a wannabe too, that the one thing I was good at, that made me special, would be taken away.

It was too much for me to face.

I’m going to keep going. I’m going to push on, overcome my emotions, temper my reactions to rejection, criticism, and fear.

But will it get any easier?

Is it like exercise? If I keep at it, will I get used to the emotional toll of writing, or is metal illness different? Will I become more anxious and depressed with each rejection? Will I become angrier and more frantic when editors shred my work? Will I always be intimidated and dismayed when I try to improve as a writer?

For the answer I go to 2 Chainz and his inspirational, sublime 2017 album Pretty Girls Like Trap Music. On the track Sleep When You Die he gives me the answer:

“Hard work beats talent.”

Improving my mental health, dealing with negativity, and becoming the best writer I can be: I might not be cut out for the business right now, but it doesn’t matter.

If I work hard enough, if I’m persistent, I’ll get there.

At least, I hope so. I mean, it can’t get any worse.

Right?