Learning To Earn Your Grub As A Writer

Grubby Writing

I didn’t understand why. Why I kept getting rejected.

I didn’t know back then that there is a difference. A difference between writing that is grubby … and writing that earns your grub.

So I kept getting returned manuscripts … and kept feeling sorry for myself. Kept blaming the system. Kept refusing to face the truth.

The truth that what I was writing wasn’t worth a damn. Wasn’t even worth a penny a word. Wasn’t worth being published.

In fact, it was years before I finally accepted the reality that what I had written back then was very GRUBBY … for it goaded readers with uncertainty, boredom and brash yammering.

It was horrible. It was filled with lies and deception … all because I wasn’t facing the truth, especially the truth about my own life.

Truth And Dare

For how can you write what is true unless you are looking for and learning to dare face the truth?

And the truth was that I was a basket case. I was a nervous shell of a woman who was under the influence of her insecurities and didn’t dare face them.

And I married a man who was always under the influence of alcohol. I refused to face my insecurities as much as he refused to face his alcohol problem.

So I wrecked my life as much as he wrecked his.

And it’s only by the grace of God that I’ve come to finally dare see my mistakes, face them head on, and change my life.

I began studying self-help books written my such motivators as Zig Ziglar and Maxwell Maltz.

And I began to learn how to write about myself and my problems instead of writing worthless babble. So, I began to heal.

Putting It Out There

Over the years, I’ve learned that it takes a certain kind of person to be a real writer. For one thing, you have to be committed to putting yourself out there. You’ve got to write about your problems, your truth.

Even if it hurts. Even if you don’t like yourself and what you did. Even if you’re scared that someone might bad mouth you and say something that might hurt more than you hurt yourself. (If that’s possible.)

For that’s the only way you’ll ever get out from under your own self-sabotage and rise above all the pain.

Because as Robert Glazer says in Elevate, “Real freedom comes from not bottling up your fears and insecurities. Deep down, most of us want and need to be uncomfortable, and we all want to grow. But you don’t get one without the other.”

As a writer, today you have more chances than ever to grow … if you risk being uncomfortable.

If you risk publishing what you write.

Learning To Earn

Sure, much of it might sound like babble to others. And it may even sound like babble to your own ears. But it’s the release of all that pain and anguish that you’ve suffered … suffered more from your own bad decisions more than anything … that really makes a difference.

Makes a difference in whether you’ll ever learn to earn your GRUB … by giving readers your undeniable best. And when you relieve yourself of the pain you’ve caused yourself by your own goof-ups, you can begin to give readers your best.

Give readers your best writing. Give readers your best advice. Give readers a quality experience.

And in order to do that, you have to write. And keep on writing. You have to write no matter if you’re depressed because no one is reading what you write. You have to write no matter if you’re feeling upset because you’re low on cash and the hope of making money as a writer seems more like a delusion.

You have to write even if it feels like it’s a dead-end.

You have to write simply because you are a writer … if that’s who you see yourself as being.

Choose Your Battles, Earn Your Victories

For you begin to believe that, as Todd Brison says, “victories only matter if they are earned.”

And the only way to earn the victories and rewards of writing is to actually write. In other words, choose the battles you write about … and write to earn your victories.

Write to learn to earn your keep.

For as Melcon Wagner puts it, you must “become so confident in who you are that no one’s opinion, rejection, or behavior can rock you.”

In other words, no one else’s opinion can change your mind about who you’ve decided to be except your own. And since you want to be a writer so bad that it’s the only thing you want to do … you write.

But you also publish what you write.

You don’t let your words stay hidden on your computer. You don’t let your thoughts waste away in loneliness as you used to do most of your life. You reveal what you think by writing and then publishing your thoughts.

Then other people at least have the chance to see who you really are.

Why You Really Write

And if people don’t like you for it … you face that risk. And you can live with it. Simply because you know that the only one who can hurt you is you yourself … you and your own ability to poison yourself with your negative thoughts.

And if people do like what you say … and say something good about it (or even if they don’t say anything at all, which is more likely) at least there is a chance that maybe … just maybe … what you say helped someone in some way.

And if what you wrote actually helped someone, then it was all worth it.

It was worth the risk.

For that’s all that really matters. Because the reason you’re writing is really to be of help. To help someone, somewhere, somehow.

Even if you never know who. When. Where. Or how.

And the only way you can do that is to write. And publish. And take what comes your way as a result.

After all, that’s what life is really about. Right?