Quis ut Deus?
“Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.”
Ecclesiastes 7:8
All writers know that failing to finish the projects we start is a major recurring problem and that if we manage to make it to the finish line, a lack of reaction to our work is incredibly disheartening. When something we pour our heart and soul into doesn’t get the fame we believe it deserves, we become understandably upset. After all, it might feel like a waste of our time in the end if it seems like nobody’s paying attention to our writing.
But all of us writers, myself especially, need to keep in mind that if we even manage to complete a writing project that we spent painstaking amounts of time brainstorming over, that in and of itself is a miracle. So many projects are left unfinished because we believed them to be worthless midway through, or just flat-out lost interest in it. When we manage to make ourselves complete the project that we fretted over for so long, we writers need to pat ourselves on the back and acknowledge the value of persevering through writers’ block and all the other distractions that previously heeded our efforts.
Of course, waiting and watching for the public to react to our writing is painful, and oftentimes, extremely frustrating. Take blogging, for example. It absolutely sucks when a blog post you fawned over and was so certain would take the Internet by storm barely gets a handful of views, days after you published it. For that reason, I’ve hesitated to complete some of the larger article ideas I’ve stored in the back of my mind. What’s the point in acting on those ideas if nobody will appreciate them?
The thing is, somebody always appreciates the things we writers create, even if they don’t express the utter amazement that we dream of. Sometimes, it can take weeks, months, and for some writing projects, years before somebody out there takes time to appreciate our literary brainchildren and respect our writing skills.
One of the best examples of this struggle for recognition is none other than J.K. Rowling, the author of the famed Harry Potter series who faced numerous rejection letters in her journey to get the first book in the series published. Beset with depression, and while struggling to provide for herself and her daughter, she made herself persevere through her obstacles. Her reward for refusing to give up hope was becoming one of the world’s bestselling authors.
As this verse and Rowling’s story implore us to do, we writers must ensure that we push through whatever obstacles come in our path and that we wait patiently, without arrogance, for our moment of recognition to come.
Featured Image by voltamax/Pixabay
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