Forget Fear of Failure - What Most Writers Fear Is Success

I wish I had a dime for every person who has ever told me they had written the perfect manuscript or the greatest blockbuster novel, short story or non-fiction article of all time…"if I could only find someone to publish it." They always seem to look surprised when I ask them how many times they have sent it out to prospective markets. After some stuttering and stammering, I get the same answer each time: zero. This potential Pulitzer Prize material is sitting in someone's bureau drawer, and it will probably never see the light of day. These conversations are usually saturated with a litany of excuses: it isn't the right time, the market is too tight, and they want to find just the right publisher for this holy material.

By the same token, I know working writers who wish to take their business from part-time dabbling to full-time food-on-the-table breadwinning, and their methods are just as flawed. They spend endless hours researching market guides, painstakingly crafting flawless queries, and attending writers' groups. But they never take the next step to market their work.

Why are these writers engaging in such thinly veiled self-sabotage? Some might possess enough insight into their own behavior to confess that fear of failure keeps them from sending their infant manuscripts and article queries out into the marketplace. But that is only half of the truth. What most writers really fear is success.

The real reason why many writers refuse to submit, however talented they might be, is that they are terrified an editor might call their bluff and buy their work. Ridiculous, you say? Why would a writer, hungry to be published, fear success? One of the insidious qualities of the fear of success is that it is usually hidden within our other human frailties. Here are just a few of the ugly disguises that fear of success takes:

Peter Pan Syndrome: When you are successful, writer or no, you have to grow up. "Growing up" in the writer's sense means that you can't hand the publishing world your usual stock of rationalizations and excuses. You will be expected to deliver. Another painful truth about success is that when you become successful, you sometimes lose some friends. Note: If those in your life can't be happy for you when you finally hit Ball 62 as a writer, they were never your friends to begin with. Cut 'em loose.

I'm an artiste: When someone tells me they are waiting for the right time or market for their work, they might as well be wearing a neon sign around their neck that says "I'm scared pea-green that an editor might accept my idea, then I would have to commit myself to doing the work and the whole world would know I'm really not that talented." As long as their sacred verses remain buried in their home offices, these would-be writers can keep the illusion alive that their work is sublime; it's the market that isn't right.

L is for lazy: These are the writers who say they want to be published, but fail to put in the writing effort where the rubber meets the road. In the wake of years of all-talk-no-action writing plans, friends and family alike quietly and correctly conclude that the would-be wordsmiths in their lives will never get their careers off the ground. This gives the writer the easy and available excuse that no one supports his or her writing pursuits.

Now for the good news: There is a way for writers to overcome fear of success. You must put your work out into the market -- lots of it. Don't misunderstand -- if you are perfectly happy writing for pleasure or circulating your work among friends and family, don't feel that you must be published to legitimize your writing. You need not be published to be considered a writer in my book. But if you have a deep yearning to see your work in print or make your living at the keyboard, there is only one way. Study the markets? Yes. Spend time working on manuscripts and writing queries? Yes. Now you must decide what you want. Just as many writing gurus urge writers to set writing goals, it is equally important to establish submission goals. They should require enough effort to cause you to stretch, but not be ridiculously unattainable. There is magic in sending your work out regularly to different markets -- the numbers don't lie. In addition, each time you have the courage to put your work out into the publishing world, you gain an inner strength and your writing momentum will build. You begin to feel a sense of control over your writing destiny.

So take the next step and send your manuscripts or article ideas out tirelessly until you see them in print. Continue to seek to improve your writing by reading books and articles on our craft. School is never out for the pro. As arduous as that sounds, remember that while many of the world's best-known writers were rejected hundreds of times, just as many may have succeeded on a third or fourth effort.

Don't let the fear of success keep the words inside you from reaching the printed page. There is but one quality that separates the published, working writers of the world from the rest who spend their lives with a bestseller pining away for want of a publishing contract, and that is the confidence to send their work out and hope for the best. If you believe in yourself enough as a writer, who knows? It’s entirely possible that what comes your way next could be a contract and a check.

 -- CB-G
© 1999 Christine Ballew-Gonzales