Writing is a skill. The more you do it consistently, and the longer you spend developing it as a skill, the better you get at this while writing thing. It’s easy to think that once you get really good at writing, the hobby or profession gets easier. I have some disappointing news for you.
Being a writer actually gets harder the more you do it! But that doesn’t mean you can’t rise to the various resulting challenges. It simply means that, if you’re serious about pursuing writing long-term, you’re going to have to accept that being good at something doesn’t always guarantee everything is going to easily come to you — or go the way you’re expecting.
Writing Doesn’t Ever Really Get Easier
I started writing stories when I was pretty young. As I grew older, and I learned more about myself and the world and how I fit into it (or didn’t), I started writing more. I started writing faster. And I unintentionally adopted this belief that I was a good enough writer that I wouldn’t struggle once it came time to looking for work and getting published.
After a lot of struggling, I finally understood that while writing as a craft had gotten easier for me, navigating the writing world was a particular challenge I had not known to anticipate. In the first few years of my career, I found myself writing about topics completely outside my realm of expertise just to pay the bills. And no matter how much work I did, the money I earned still never seemed to be enough. As I landed my first full-time staff writing job and realized I was a little in over my head, I had to make a choice: give up, or use each challenge I faced to get better at what I wanted to do — even if it was always going to be a little more difficult than I expected.
I didn’t give up. And eventually, I did figure it out. And I believe you can, too.
Every New Hurdle Is a New Chance to Learn and Grow
I wasn’t good at facing new challenges as a writer at my very first staff writing job. I fell way behind many of my peers when I was pushed out of my comfort zone out of necessity. There were times I didn’t have what it took to succeed and failed — largely because for a long time, I was ahead of my respective writing cohorts. No one prepared me for some of the hardships I’d face when I got to the real world. I had to learn a lot of lessons in real time, the hard way.
And this will happen to you, too — because it happens to all of us. You don’t know what you’re going to face in your career until you’re out there actually doing it. You will be challenged. You might be an amazing writer by then, with exceptional skills and abilities. But you often have to take things as they come, figure it out as you go, and do the best you can. You’ll emerge from every experience, if you’re willing, having learned a lot about yourself, the kinds of stories you want to tell, and where you best fit in whichever industry you might choose.
If You Really Want This, You’ll Put In the Work
It’s the writers who really, truly want to write professionally who will have the most success in the end. There will always be people whose privilege gets them on the paths they want to be on, often privileges you won’t have access to. There will be people who count themselves lucky, or who just happened to be at the right place at the right time.
But those who really put in the work long-term to grow and establish themselves as writers will fare the best when they do eventually get to the places they want to be. The more challenges you face in writing, the more prepared you’ll be for everything that comes with your endgame. Some writers will almost get there, but won’t have what it takes to handle it all. If you’re prepared, you won’t be one of them.
Meg Dowell Writes 