Remember when writing was fun?

How to find the joy again when you're feeling like a "failure"

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Today I’d love to tackle a question from a reader. Jessie asks:

How do you stay grounded in your process while feeling like a “failure” in the business? For context, I’m feeling like a “failure” in terms of querying and again getting close-but-no-thanks responses. I’ve recently decided to stop querying a novel even though I know I haven’t exhausted my list, because I just don’t feel like querying it any longer. I’m pivoting to a different novel instead, but it feels like everywhere I look, others are achieving the goals I have for myself. And I’m hitting brick walls. I miss enjoying my process and the writing.

Oh, Jessie. This question. It’s so hard. And it’s also really common.

Right now, the last thing you probably want to hear from an already agented and published author is, “I experience this too!” But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t struggle with this also. The feelings you hinted at in your question follow creative people everywhere, no matter what stage their career is at or how successful (or not) they appear from the outside.

It may not help much, especially not when you’re in the thick of these complicated, dark feelings, but I promise you are not alone.

Before I dive in to the heart of your question, I want to share how happy I was to see that you put the word failure in quotes.

Success is relative because everyone defines success—and failure—a bit differently, especially in creative endeavors. But at the end of the day, we writers can’t control much besides the words we put on the page, so you haven’t failed in that regard, Jessie. You wrote a novel. You did the thing. You succeeded.

Some books don’t land agents. Other books don’t get bought by publishers. Many, many books don’t hit the list or get a movie adaptation or win awards. Not reaching any of these milestones doesn’t turn a book (or its writer!) into a failure, and I’m so glad you understand that, Jessie. Especially because goalposts tend to be constantly moving, making it nearly impossible to ever feel truly satisfied. In fact, chasing success might be making us unhappy.

That said, the feeling of being a failure is still very real, and it’s hard to combat. In part, because goals are motivating, and achieving a goal is pretty universally accepted as having found success. The goal of querying, after all, is to land an agent. We can’t control if an agent will connect with our story, but we want them to. If they don’t, it feels very much like some sort of failure on our part, even when we can objectively see that the reception of our novel is out of our hands.

The other reason the feeling of being a failure is so hard to combat comes down to social media. Jessie, you said “it feels like everywhere I look, others are achieving the goals I have for myself.” I share this sentiment. I have been trying to sell another book to a publisher for several years now, and everywhere I turn, writers are announcing new book deals. They appear in my industry emails. They fill my social media feeds. They pop up in newsletters I’m subscribed to.

It feels endless. It feels like everyone is achieving my goal but me.

The truth, however, is that social media is a highlights reel and most of us are faking it till we make it. Writers post the good news, for one because it’s our job to share news/updates, and for two, because it’s way more fun to celebrate highs than to air our lows, our “failures.”

But I promise you that everyone is experiencing setbacks. Even those fancy blockbuster authors who seem to sell like hotcakes and have everything going right for them. Their struggles are different from mine, and mine are different from yours, but they’re all still struggles, and the short of it is that everyone feels like a failure on occasion. Sometimes that feeling is fleeting and brief. Other times it latches on for months or years.

Jessie, you mentioned that you miss enjoying the process. You miss the fun of writing. And this seems to be the heart of your question — How do we protect that joy? How do we stay grounded in our process when negative feeling attempt to distract us?

It. Is. Hard.

Sometimes the negative feelings win. And look, I’m not a therapist, but I think it is good to feel the things you are feeling. Even when you’re feeling like a quote-unquote failure, that feeling is still valid. Let yourself sit with it for a bit. Step away from the writing. Go for a walk. Get coffee with friends. Do things that refill your well. So long as you’re not wallowing in a dark headspace, it’s okay to feel it. It might even be necessary. I am a firm believer that bottling up an emotion doesn’t do any of us much good.

As for finding the joy again, rekindling the love? This is a bit trickier, because whenever you start to work on something new, there will be a part of your subconscious that thinks about the next step — querying, selling to a publisher, marketability, commercial hooks, sales, etc. It’s human nature. Once you take that first step toward putting a barcode on your art, your experience with said art will be irrevocably changed. You’re no longer writing for the sake of writing. You’re writing with an end product in mind, and this changes how you approach story. It kills some of the joy.

It’s much easier said than done, but my advice for breaking out of this funk is to approach your next book with a “Fuck it” attitude. Screw trends and marketability. Who cares what’s popular, or what agents have on their manuscript wishlists, or what your critique partners think you should write next. Write what YOU want to write next. Pretend there are no goals for the book other than to bring yourself joy. Write the book for you.

This approach won’t be a cure-all. You will still battle intrusive thoughts. Social media will still attempt to lure you into comparison games. But speaking from experience, writing a book just for me has truly been the only method that’s allowed me to rekindle my love for writing time and time again. I set low expectations—the goal of the draft isn’t to find an agent or snag a book deal, for example, it’s simply to go on an adventure with the characters. And lo and behold, once I find an idea I’m excited about and approach it with this mentality, writing becomes fun again.

If you think back to when you first started writing, this was probably all you were after, right? You had a story inside you—you heard these characters’s voices and saw their struggles—and you had to document it.

That’s the feeling we all end up chasing again at some point: the joy of getting a story on paper. To return there, you have to block out all external voices—negative and positive. You have to set aside goals of publication. You have to pretend it’s just you and your words. And if you can do that, you’ll find that you’re able to coexist with doubt, coexist with that feeling of being a “failure.” You can acknowledge that it’s there—you can even admit that it’s normal and natural to feel it—but you won’t give it any real power. You protect your joy.

So to sum up, safeguard your process and love of writing by:

• Taking social media breaks

• Being kind to yourself (refill your creative well as needed)

• Focusing on the story, not the end goal/product

• Writing for YOU (put trends/wish lists/marketing out of mind)

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Jessie, I hope you are able to rekindle your love of writing. Speaking from experience, I have fallen out of love and back in love with writing many times over. It’s scary when you hate the act of writing… and it’s a joyous relief when everything clicks again. I genuinely hope that approaching your next story with that eff it attitude helps. Write the book for you. Protect your process. Block out the intrusive voices. Rekindle that joy! And remember: you are not alone in feeling like a “failure.”

Signed, someone who feels like a “failure” at least once a week,

Erin Bowman is the critically acclaimed author of numerous books for children and teens, including the Taken Trilogy, Vengeance Road, Retribution Rails, the Edgar Award-nominated Contagion duology, The Girl and the Witch’s Garden, and Dustborn. A web designer turned author, Erin has always been invested in telling stories—both visually and with words. Erin lives in New Hampshire with her husband and children.