Part of the gift and the challenge with being a freelance writer is not knowing what comes next. While you may be riding the wave of good fortune this month, you may be drowning the next. Although there is the rare writer who radiates an envious and endless optimism, most of us struggle day to day, typing along, hoping to be discovered and appreciated for the hard work writing requires.

I’m of the more common variety. And after reading Julia Cameron’s Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance, I was relieved that even best-selling authors go through this too. It’s actually Cameron’s phrase “keep the faith” that inspired the title and content of this post.

I think it’s easy to get discouraged in this field. Like my husband often says, “You picked a very challenging career.” Although I’m not saving lives here, because writing is such a personal endeavor, I sometimes feel like the life I’m trying to save is my own.

Staying Positive

I have to work on keeping positive and optimistic so that I can get through the valleys and get on to the mountaintops. For me, this means going out of the house to meet with weekly groups (I just joined a professional work at home women’s club.), talking to other writers, and saying silly mantras in my head like, “I’m a successful writer.” I do this all to get through the lull and discouragement that is inevitable in this business.

All Rejection is Temporary Except Your Own

I remember reading somewhere that the only real and permanent rejection is your own. You may not get that seemingly perfect writing job or get your piece published in that national magazine, but those rejections are temporary. If you give up on yourself, then the journey is over.

No matter what stage you are in your writing, don’t give up yet. Keep the faith. And do whatever you must to keep pushing through. If you quit now, you’ll never know how close you were to success. You might have been just a day away…

Something pulled me from my warm bed and hour of mindless magazine reading today. I was thinking about my last post.

I was thinking about how Walt Disney encountered a lot of bad people in the biz and still waded in his way through the slime and got to the other side. In fact, not just in spite of the greedy people out there but because he had resilience.

There are many traits important in having a successful freelance writing business and I definitely think resilience is one of them.

Resilience helps you keep going. It’s what helped Olympic winner and best-selling author Bonnie St. John endure divorce, disability and difficulty in her life. (You can read my interview with her here.) And it’s what gets most writers over that initial hump, criticism and rejection.
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