Frustration: the Invisible Illness of Every Writer

5 practical ways to beat it

Frustration is an unavoidable illness that sets in in the life of every writer, especially the new beginners when the desired results are not coming forth.

The senior pen pals who have been on Medium for months and years have had their own share of experiences of this invisible illness but the majority have outgrown the symptoms.

You may be a writer for ten years. But when you join newly in any writing platform, you are a new beginner in that medium. You still need to learn about their house-styles and count from one.

The feelings of being frustrated set in when the goals of writing become unrealistic. But some of these goals are on its own a ghost shadows

How can a new writer in a new platform set a goal to go home with $1,000 at the end of the month? With this kind of mindset, frustration will sure set in if at the end of the month the writer ended up like myself who earned $0.10 (ten cents) in the first month on Medium.

Frustration is inevitable in writing. But there are sure practical ways of beating it. They are:

Having a probability mindset

A probability mindset is saying to yourself ‘it is either good or bad. It is either big or small. It is either up or down.’ A writer with this kind of mindset is flexible and elastic. He flows with situations and circumstances.

We can never tell how many writers have rushed into Medium and how many have rushed out. They rushed in the way all of us did because they read something that caught their interest; the same way all of us read something that fascinated us.

The majority of those who rushed out without fulfilling their writing dreams did so out of frustration. They hit the rock and exited when they could no longer endure.

If you are frustrated right now, if you are disappointed in Medium as a new writer, you need to change your mindset. That is the possible reason why you are feeling the way you are feeling right now.

Squeezing the get rich quick syndrome and trashing it.

Anyone coming on Medium or any other writing platform with a mindset of getting rich quick will surely get frustrated if the dream is not coming quickly as thought.

I may be a newbie on Medium but I came prepared. I have read several articles from writers who have made it on Medium. The sincere ones didn’t hit the jackpot immediately. Most of them wrote for the whole 18 months, worked hard on building followers, and write consistently.

One thing about success stories is that most of the writers present how they are able to climb a hilly and stony mountain without mentioning how many toes they have lost on the processes.

Someone has written the 1,000 articles on Medium and still hustles for more but you have just begun with 20 articles and you are already ringing bells.

“The dews will fall on those who are standing before it rest on those who are squatting" Chinua Achebe.

Expect Rejections but never feel Rejected

“I have not known the word ‘disappointment’ because I expect nothing from you” Anonimous.

Another source of frustration on Medium is when a new writer knocks on the doors of publications, but none opens the door.

“It is well”. I always tell myself. If pubs reject me, self-publication will not.

Publishing on Medium publications plays roles in molding writers but when none is available, self-publishing is the only option.

Frustration will set in if Publications on medium have said no to you and you have said no to yourself as well. Every writer should expect rejections but should not feel rejected.

Curation or no curation

“I have not known the word ‘disappointment’ because I expect nothing from you.” Anonimous

There is nothing that worsens this feeling of frustration than those pop-up notifications you see every morning from fellow writers on the Facebook pages who have one curation testimony or the other to share.

The ones that remind you of your woes are the ones that say; “article written yesterday and curated today”. The frustrated mind is always there to remind you you have written 40 articles but none has been curated. It is quick to calculate the number of days, weeks, and months you have been writing without curation.

But do you know there are articles that have earned better without being curated? Yes! They have earned more than the curated ones. I have seen the displayed stats of people who testified about curation. Their earnings on the articles were poor compared to what I expect about getting curated.

I have learned not to hope for curation on any of my articles. So, I am not angry when they ended up not being curated. A man who expects nothing from his fellow man does not know disappointment. A man who does not know disappointment cannot be frustrated.

Deciding to be productive against all odds

Your decision to be productive against all odds is a sign that you will survive the storm. I have read in an article about a writer whose article of three years which was not curated was selected recently to be featured in a magazine. This happened three years after the article was written when he had given up on it. The story had it too that all other old articles he had written previously began to earn tractions again after the single recognition.

I have learned to cast my bread upon the water. I know that my effort will be rewarded someday.

Frustrations will come as a writer but there are practical ways to deal with it.