How Can We Be Happily Unpublished?

[In parts one through four of this Happily Unpublished series we’ve talked about how happiness works, the misconceptions about published versus unpublished writers, the benefits of being happy wherever you are in your writing career, and what’s great about being unpublished.  Finally, we’re down to the nitty gritty.  HOW to be happily unpublished. Hope you enjoy the final installment!]

Like I said before (probably many times), being happy is a choice. It’s not always easy. What’s important in life rarely is.  But there are ways to be happy, even while you’re working toward your dreams.

Here are some practical steps:

Make the decision that it is more important to be happy than to be published.  What if you never publish or don’t publish for another ten years? Do you want to chance being unhappy that whole time or do you want to find a way to be happy no matter what?

Be mindful of the day-to-day. Instead of always looking so far down the road – to when you have an agent, when you sell that first book, when you get a multiple book contract – ask yourself what’s great about your writing today?

• The chapter you just finished?
• That perfectly worded sentence that made your critique group laugh out loud?
• Your writing friends?
• The plot problems you just ironed out?
• The craft class you’re taking and loving?
• The fact that you wrote at all today?

Even the tiniest bits of happiness put together over time make you a happier person. Look for those bits of happiness!

Accept yourself and writing career and skill level exactly as it is. 

• You don’t have to be anything more than what you are right now to be valuable.
• Doing what you love gives value to the world and everyone around you.
• Being happy sets a wonderful example to our kids, our family, our friends.

Remember all that you HAVE accomplished. Back to that idea of being in either Seattle OR Disneyland, being Unpublished OR Published. Unless you haven’t yet written a single word, you have accomplished something that you can be proud of. And if you haven’t written a single word yet…do it! So many people never have the guts to start. So many people give up when it doesn’t happen quickly. If you’re still writing, you have accomplished something to be proud of.

Build friendships with like-minded writers who want to be positive no matter where they are in their careers. 

• If Negative Nellie is bringing you down now, she’s going to bring you down when you’re published, too, or when she publishes and you don’t.
• Choose friends wisely and choose the ones who bring you up, not down.  I can’t stress this enough – don’t put up with people who make you feel bad about yourself, your writing, or your career.

Look for ways to be a Happy Writer. 

• Organize writing activities with other writers that make you all feel good about what you’re doing.
• Write things that make you happy.
• Keep lists of all your successes.
• Be more aware of the positive things in your writing life than the negative. Because the negative things are all temporary if you don’t give them your attention.

Identify unhappy thought patterns. Being self-aware is the first step toward turning things around.

Focus on the things that make you happy as a writer and stop doing the things that don’t.

• If you find that every time you enter a contest and you get low scores it drags you down into the dumps and makes you unable to write for weeks…stop entering contests.  You can have a successful writing career without ever entering a single contest.
• If you find the particular critique group you belong to isn’t working for you and just makes you depressed, stop. Find another group or work on your own for a while.
• Don’t continued doing things that make you miserable because you think they are expect of you.

Remember that being happy where you are doesn’t mean you don’t have any goals. It just means that your happiness doesn’t depend on meeting goals that are out of your control anyway. None of us can control whether we publish or publish again. But we can cheerfully work toward those goals with a good attitude.

Don’t turn being a Happy Writer into something else to beat yourself up about not doing correctly. Like anything new, being a Happy Writer is difficult at first. Like perfecting a golf swing or playing the piano, it requires much practice, but eventually it becomes a muscle memory and comes more natural.

That’s the way it is with happiness. It’s hard to remember to keep practicing at first, but pretty soon, looking at the positive side of things becomes natural. You develop a happiness muscle that knows exactly how to be a Happy Writer.

Finally, remember that you always have a choice.  If the writing journey doesn’t make you happy along the way, you don’t have to do it. But if you want to do it, you have the choice to be happy while you do so.

I really hope you’ve enjoyed this series!  Let me know what you think of it and please share on Facebook and Twitter and pass the links along to anyone you know who might need a little Happy Writer inspiration!

Image Credit: TheDeliciousLife

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