Great Expectations

People like myself who give advice to writers, often remind beginning authors that they should write for the pleasure of the experience rather than to get published. This is good advice, but it can easily be misunderstood. If you have experienced a certain amount of rejection, you might take this to mean you shouldn’t even expect to see your work published, that you should make do with the daily pleasure of crafting your stories and poems, that this may be all you ever get to experience.

If you are like me, you rebel against this. You recognize it is not the best idea to be obsessed with publication, but you still want to be published. You don’t just want to write in your journal. You have enjoyed reading other people’s stories, and you think how magical it would be if someone found the same joy and meaning in yours. Wanting to see your work published is about more than your ego and your desire to be recognized. Yes, that’s mixed up in it, but there’s still something beautiful about sharing what we love with others.

It is perfectly natural, even advisable, to expect our stories to be published if – and this is often a very big if – we have actually written a story we would want to share. That is, if you write a story simply because you want to have something you can try to publish, chances are it won’t be. An author must be willing to ask of their own work, “Is this what I most want to share? Is this my idea of a cool, interesting, satisfying story?” The answer has to be a complete, “Yes.” If it isn’t, and if it is sent out anyway, then the author has rejected him or herself already, and can expect the same from others.

But if you have told that story as you most want to tell it, then you can indeed expect it to be accepted somewhere. In fact, the best thing you can do is to expect it. Anything else would be yet another form of self-rejection. However, the only way to write a story you’d want to share, that you ever will share, is to take sincere pleasure in the telling. That remains true also. Would you have it any other way? Of course you wouldn’t. To believe otherwise is to decide your pleasure doesn’t matter, your joy doesn’t matter, your stories don’t matter, and neither do you, and you know this isn’t true.

If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual coaching and group workshops.

Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt
You can find William at: williamkenower.com