On Being Your Own Cheerleader

Let me tell you a little secret: no one will be as excited about your project as you are.

This might sound harsh, but ultimately, it’s true, and for newer writers, I think it’s better to learn this early than to learn it the hard way as you give up on projects because no one seems interested. Despite what others may say, writing is, generally, a solitary pursuit. You are the writer. You are the omnipotent god of your fictional world. And while others might be cheering you on, no one should be as excited about your project as you are, and expecting others to be your constant hype men is setting yourself up for failure.

I don’t want to say you can’t rely on others, but frankly, you can’t rely on other people. It isn’t your current or future readers’ responsibility to sustain your interest in a project.

When I first came across this sentiment of “No one seems interested in my work, so why bother,” I was a bit confused because I thought, “Well, the book isn’t out yet. Why would they be excited, especially if you are a new writer?” I forget that people actually show others their work while they’re writing. I tend not to. Not due to being squeamish about showing my unedited work but because I have a don’t bother anyone complex. It also slipped my mind that when people write fanfic, they tend to post things a chapter at a time and build an audience along the way. That tends not to happen with original fiction, unless you’re posting it on something like Wattpad or Ream as you write it, or you share your work in progress with an alpha-reader.

I can see how that would be a rough shift, having that built-in audience from posting your work on a piece-by-piece basis to having no one knowing what you’re working on or being excited about it until people read it and start to spread the word. No matter what though, if you abandon a project because your hypothetical audience isn’t hyped for it, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. I would definitely take a second and think if your knee-jerk reaction is self-sabotage to avoid feeling like a failure if that book isn’t popular.

I’ll let you in on another secret, first books rarely sell well. At least not until you have several other books out.

You need to find some sort of motivation to keep you going, whether it’s for the love of the story or for money, you need something that’s wholly you to keep writing when things get hard and it seems like no one cares. Above all, I care about my characters. I love them and want to see what happens to them, and my first audience member is me. If I like them, I assume others will too, but you’ll have to market the book to people like you in order to find those other readers. Look at what other people in your genre (or other writers you enjoy who are similar to you) are doing and try to emulate that when marketing your own work. Don’t go rogue with that first book. Don’t think you’re the exception. Don’t assume you’re a failure if book one is sort of a flop because that’s normal, and there’s a good chance it’ll get better.

As I write this, the thing I regret is that I can’t make you care about your work or about your characters enough to maintain that level of “screw you” needed to make art. Every artist who finishes something has a healthy (or unhealthy) amount of screw you in their system. It’s the little voice that pops up to tell off the world when someone devalues the humanities or says, “who would read that?” ME, that’s who. Over the years, I feel like my screw you voice sounds more and more like Anthony Bourdain, but I’m okay with that. When I need to summon the strength to tell my brain or the outside world to f-off because my work matters, I channel the spirit of a disgruntled, slightly world-weary chef, and it does the trick.

Whatever works to help stoke your artist ego to get your art done, do it. It may seem silly or pointless, but trust me, it isn’t. In the darker times when things aren’t going smoothly or you feel like no one gives a shit, that inner voice will get you through. In the end, you need to be your own cheerleader or disgruntled chef because no one else will.