Lori Devoti, paranormal romance and urban fantasy author

Writing is a funny thing. If you say you are a writer, you are supposed to LOVE writing. It is supposed to have been your lifelong dream, and the ruling passion of your life–or at least that is what many people seem to believe. And I’m sure it is for many people, but like anything you do on deadline, and for public consumption (and criticism) it can become very very draining.

I’ve had this talk with a couple of different groups of friends lately. One group was all published, one wasn’t. For the second I was describing my experience writing my last finished manuscript. It was a rough book for me. I told them the story of this frog…When I was little I was over visiting some friends and we found a dead frog in the street. The frog had been run over by a car. Just sitting there in the road it looked normal. However, we discovered if we stepped on a certain place on its back, its guts came out of its mouth. Then when you removed your foot, they disappeared back into the poor thing and he looked peaceful and normal again.

That, I told them, pretty much described me writing my last book. I stressed and puked up my guts only to realize it wasn’t going to work; then I’d do it all over again. And the entire time, with the exception I’m sure of when my literary guts were hanging out there, I liked pretty normal to the world around me.

My friends found my honesty surprising–because I was supposed to LOVE the process. Well, yeah, but when you’re the frog, it’s darn hard sometimes.

Later, I was chatting with another friend who’d had a bit of a tough year. She had a ton of books out, got great reviews on all of them, but the sales were not as great. She felt chewed up…or maybe like the frog, but with that foot constantly on her back. She needed reassurance that the rest of us didn’t LOVE writing every single moment and in every single stage. The answer is we don’t, and darn it, that’s okay.

Writing isn’t easy. You take your brain and you squeeze it like a sponge… and sometimes the sponge is dry.

People say mean things about the work that you went through such pain to create. They don’t all love you.

Sometimes people love you, but apparently not enough for the gods of publishing and you don’t sell more books.

Bad things that have nothing to do with you, your books or how many people read them happen. (lines close, your editor gets hit by a subway, your laptop explodes)

And if you obsess on any of these things you will lose your mind and you will not be able to keep writing. So, my advice?

Don’t. Keep your head down, eyes ahead. Know where you want to go and focus on that. Don’t let the Internet chatter of the next coming disaster suck you off your path; don’t read bad reviews, or if you must shrug them off. Don’t let any of that background noise get to you–and also don’t believe it when people say “this” will make you. Don’t focus on “making it.” Focus on doing what you do. Be a Missouri mule, blinders in place, staring ahead at where you have to go, and placing one foot in front of the other.

Then, when you can, stop and enjoy where you got to.

Here’s another writer’s advice on staying sane while writing…