For the last couple of months we’ve been talking a lot about disturbances in your writing, from writer’s block to family to repetitive strain injury. It’s important to develop strategies for dealing with each of these obstacles, but in the end it all boils down to one thing: making sacrifices.
Today we are blessed that we can do just about anything we want with our time. We have literally millions of options. We can read or watch anything almost instantly with the internet. We can communicate instantly. We can also do everything that came before the internet: go for a bike ride, travel, garden, socialize at the local pub.
With so many options, everyone’s always busy. We fill up our time without thinking about it and forget to leave time for ourselves. We forget to make time for our craft. We get caught up in everything else the world has to offer and we forget the most important things.
It’s fun to party all the time or to spend all your time after work lounging in front of the TV. Even better, it’s easy. But if you want to actually build a successful writing career someday, you have to make sacrifices. You have to turn the TV off. You have to close your browser. You have to say no to that party or at least go home early.
Making these sacrifices is hard at first, but it gets easier all the time, and without making the sacrifices, you’ll never become a career writer. If you can’t make the sacrifices, maybe this business isn’t for you. Perhaps writing is just an emotional outlet for you or a hobby. That’s fine. Just remember not to treat it like a hobby when you’re trying to turn it into a career.
To be good at anything, you need to practice. To practice, you need time. To create time, you need to make sacrifices. So make a commitment to your writing and make the sacrifice. You’ll know it’s worth it when you have that first publishing contract.
I absolutely love this post because it is so true that we need to make sacrifices. I am continually sacrificing sleeping in even just an hour late to fire up my Surface and working my butt off to build an audience for my book. I’m even sacrificing part of my sanity for more work hours to have some money for gas in case my contract manager wants me to travel around for book signings. I’m sacrificing even more, but it’s all worth it.
Hi Amber,
I’m glad you liked this post. It really is true. Sometimes I’m good at this, sometimes I’m bad at it, and often I wonder just how much I should be willing to sacrifice. I’m more likely to sacrifice going to bed at a decent hour than sleeping in though–I usually work better at night.
Congratulations on your book release. I hope you’ll consider writing something up for Dianna’s Writing Den around your release date. It won’t even cost you any gas–though you might have to sacrifice an hour of your time.
Thanks for stopping by,
~Dianna
Oh, I certainly will. Thank you!
Good advice. Especially, when working at home it’s so easy to get diverted and think we’ll make it up later. I think for me the biggest sacrifice has been giving up a certain spontaneity.
Hi Jordan,
I’m rather fond of spontaneity myself, and it’s always a constant struggle for me to stick to my work schedule. Still, every time I force myself to stick with the schedule it gets easier, and the sacrifices will all be worth it in the end. They’ve already proven their worth.
Thanks,
~Dianna