Seven Arthur Schopenhauer’s Lessons for Writers

Philosophical wisdom for content creators.

When I want a bit of magical realism, I don’t read the Latin American boom authors. I read Arthur Schopenhauer.

Do you know why?

Because his realism is magical.

Reading Schopenhauer when I’m unmotivated gives me a boost of energy.

He is a philosopher known for his pessimism. But to me, that pessimism helps me to believe in myself. Because it makes me reflect on what I need to achieve my goals without fooling me.

Sometimes we need to be told the truth to our face. Especially those of us who dedicate ourselves to fiction. Because we tend to spend our lives in the clouds.

Old Schopenhauer’s philosophy can become a writing manual, and I want to prove it to you. That’s why in today’s article, I want to share with you seven of his most powerful thoughts and their application to the world of writing.

Are you ready?

Let’s get started.

I. It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it elsewhere

Stories are everywhere. Everyone has one. But to be a good writer, you have to tell those stories from inner joy. Even if it’s a horror novel. It has to make you happy to write it. Because that happiness is transmitted in passion to the reader. And that magic is what separates greats works from mediocre ones.

Sometimes, we find it hard to continue with a novel. And yet we strive to finish it, only to end up dissatisfied with the result. It’s okay to leave work half-finished. You don’t have to throw it in the wastebasket or get rid of it.

Stephen King started to write his novel “Under the Dome” in the seventies but can’t finish it. And he said the following,

“I first tried to write The Dome in 1976 and abandoned it with my tail between my legs after two weeks of work that yielded about seventy-five pages.”

He didn’t throw the work away. He left it in a drawer and waited until it was time to write it. That moment came thirty years later. In 2007 King tried to write it again. And in 2009, it was published.

When a work resists you, let it rest for the necessary time. Remember the words of Charles Bukowski.

“if it doesn’t come bursting out of you despite everything, don’t do it. unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut, don’t do it.”

II. He who does not enjoy solitude will not love freedom

If you can’t tolerate solitude for long periods, do not dedicate your life to writing. Writing is a solitary activity.

To dedicate yourself to write you will need,

• Know how to write (obvious).
• Plan.
• Devote time daily to your writing.
• A computer.
• Read a lot.
• Have a lot of patience.
• Be tenacious and don’t give up easily.

And most of these requirements require you to spend a lot of time alone.

I once read that if you want to be a writer, you have to forget about having a social life, and even if you do, you have to get used to the idea that you will lose it.

I don’t think it’s that radical. But a good writer indeed has to write without being conditioned. And it is ok that what our loved ones think about what we write matters to us.

But let me explain something: if it conditions your writing, you will never be a good writer.

I was very embarrassed when my mother read some things in my books, but that didn’t stop me from including them in them.

As Schopenhauer says, you have to enjoy your solitude and love your freedom above all things.

The next time you sit down to write and are afraid of what someone might think of you when you publish your work, remember the wise words of the great writer Ezra Pound,

“The dedication is the writer’s only moral conviction.”

III. What people commonly call destiny is, as a rule, nothing more than their own stupid and foolish conduct

How often do we complain that someone else is doing better than we are?

When I brought out my first book of poetry, the top ten best-selling books in my genre were not written by writers. But by singers. I complained about professional intrusiveness, that they had much more money for publicity campaigns, etc.

After that, motivated by this sentence by Schopenhauer, I decided to stop conditioning myself and improve my attitude. And you know what? It worked.

I stopped thinking that destiny was written, and that renewed my strength.

I made a list of things I could do. And did all was in my hand to promote my first book.

And after a lot of hard work promoting on Twitter (a social network I will always be grateful to). I climbed for several weeks to the top of the best-selling Spanish-language poetry books on Amazon.

How did I achieve this?

1. By stopping feeling sorry for myself.
2. Not spending my energy on criticizing others.
3. With the help of all my readers.

It was my stupid behavior that was forging my destiny. When I changed my attitude, everything got better.

You have to take life with philosophy. Remember the words of Epictetus,

“Only after having faced up to this fundamental rule and learned to distinguish between what we can control and what we don’t will inner tranquility and outer efficiency be possible.”

IV. Every truth goes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently rejected. Third, it is accepted as self-evident

Perhaps you want to dedicate yourself professionally to writing, but you don’t dare.

It’s normal. I’m sure you’ve heard hundreds of things like this.

• Writers are poor.
• Being a writer will not feed you.
• You will end up frustrated and broke.

And others much more hurtful. But as Arthur tells us, every truth goes through three stages.

• First: everyone laughs at your dream and believes that you will not achieve it.
• Second: when time goes by, and they see that you don’t give up, arrives social rejection. Because everyone wants to be right about what you have to do with your life. It’s a bit sickening, but that’s how it is.
• Third: you make it, and let me tell you something: you’re going to make it. Then, everybody wants to jump on the bandwagon of success.

The history of literature is full of writers that nobody bet on.

• J.K Rowling lived off the state pension.
• Stephen King lived in a trailer park, and the only person who believed in him was his wife, Tabitha.
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez lived off the charity of his landlady in a garret in Paris. Even his girlfriend left him because he had no money.
• Roberto Bolaño went through thousands of hardships. His electricity was frequently cut off. And he began to live on what he earned by submitting stories to small literary prizes organized by municipalities.
• Charles Bukowski was already an old man when Bono from U2 became interested in his books, and he became an icon.
• Eric Arthur Blair, better known as George Orwell, lived in financial hardship well into his 40s.
• Franz Kafka was diagnosed with tuberculosis at the age of 34 and spent the rest of his life in sanatoriums. His writings did not achieve notoriety during his lifetime.
• Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick, but when he published it, it was considered a failure. He had to sell his possessions to survive. At the end of his days, he became addicted to alcohol.
• Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra published the main work of the Spanish language in the last 500 years. However, he never saw royalties for its publication since it was pirated in its first edition.

So be firm in your decisions, be confident in your power, and always remember these words of Confucius,

“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in getting up every time, we fall.”

V. A person who is not original enough to think of a new title for his book will be much less able to give it new contents

Marketing matters.

It really matters.

You may think you only need to write well to progress as a writer, but it’s not true. Today you have to entertain.

Yes, you may not like that word, but we live in an entertainment society.

In previous centuries writers competed with other writers. But in the twenty-first century, writers are vying for readers’ attention with Netflix, video games, reality shows, television, and social media.

And if you don’t learn to sell yourself, no one will read you.

As Schopenhauer says, you have to give your work a good title. Whether it is a book or an article, it has to attract attention. Besides, thanks to Google, words count more than ever, and you will have to learn some SEO to position yourself in the first search positions of this search engine.

Content is just as important. People’s attention is weak nowadays.

Each sentence has to have the objective of pushing the reader to read the next one.

Each page has to make your reader want to read another one.

Each chapter has to have the intention of leaving the reader wanting to read the next one.

And do you know why?

Because if after all the effort you’ve invested in having a reader, that reader doesn’t read the whole book, he won’t buy the next one.

Or would you buy a book from an author whose last book you just left half-read?

The world has changed. On the other hand, today is easier than ever to make yourself known. Before you needed a publisher, today, you have the Internet.

But do you know what the best marketing campaign of all is?

To be recommended.

So don’t forget this quote from Stanley Rapp,

“Making a sale is important. But building customer loyalty is vital.”

VI. The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply us with the commentary on it

Many people are in a hurry to start writing. And not a few professional writers advise living first.

The famous writer Arturo Perez Reverte was for many years a war correspondent. After decades in his profession, he decided to write novels.

Do you know why?

Because he had something valuable to tell.

Schopenhauer was right: life must first be lived to be told.

It’s like in the monologue of the movie Good Will Hunting when Robin tells Matt Damon,

So if I asked you about art, you’d probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo? You know a lot about him. Life’s work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientation, the whole works, right? But I bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling. Seen that. If I asked you about women, you’d probably give me a syllabus of your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can’t tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You’re a tough kid. I ask you about war, and you’d probably, uh, throw Shakespeare at me, right? “Once more into the breach, dear friends.” But you’ve never been near one. You’ve never held your best friend’s head in your lap and watched him gasp his last breath, looking to you for help.

To write, you have to live. There’s no other way to do it. To do it “honestly,” at least.

VII. Every genius is a great child; he looks upon the world as something strange, as a spectacle, and therefore with a purely objective interest

Objectivity is a rising value in this world. A place where post-truth and fakes news rule everything.

You have no idea how important it is nowadays to have a reliable source of information. People don’t take the time to document themselves before launching their work on the networks.

If you do, that will distinguish you from the rest. You may not write as many articles every month as other people. But the ones you do write will be truthful, and that is much more important.

For example, Ryan Holiday does not publish 3 articles every day. But when he does, it’s run viral

This does not happen overnight. Gaining authority on a topic takes a lot of time and effort. But once you achieve it, your future as a content creator is assured.

People want accurate information. They don’t want to waste time doubting whether they are reading based on correct or incorrect data. That’s why they turn to writers who do that research for them.

We often forget that one of the mains parts of writing is research.

We are here to entertain. But also to inform, and to do that, we have to offer valuable information to the reader.

Do the research and get things right may be the slowest way, but it is the right way.

Listen to Schopenhauer and never stop being amazed and passionate about your work. Touch on subjects where you can be objective and enjoy yourself like a child.

And never forget that life is a story that deserves to be written with passion and truth.

If you have read to the end of the article, I want to thank you for your support. I hope this article has helped you. If so, let me know in the comments. I really appreciate it.

Thanks for reading. Alberto García (Malafama1981).

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