Working on long-term projects, such as writing a novel, means that the writer will not receive any feedback for a long time.
For months, and sometimes years, the writer sits in front of her computer filling in the blank pages and has no idea if what she is doing any good and if it is worth the effort at all.
The writer enters the project with a blind hope like entering a maze and hopes that when she comes, she will have something worthy of someone else’s attention.
Even when she finishes her project and when it gets published, the writer often doubts the value of her work. One negative comment is enough to make a writer feel like a fraud who is presenting herself as something she is not.
Writers often, before publishing anything, have been writing in secret for years because they fear what people will think. In our culture, there is a deep belief that writing is something that only certain people are allowed to do and that it is not for us, and then when a writer begins to write she wonders why she would be the one, one of the special ones, destined to a writer.
People have great respect for writers, but for the known and proven; if they have not heard of a writer, they assume she’s not good enough.
The writer must get used to rejections; whether she sends her manuscript to agents, publishing houses, or the audience, she will encounter a great deal of rejection and contempt. Sometimes, rejection comes from the people the writer least expects.
If you ever doubt whether you want to go through all these things, ask yourself if you really want to write because such things are inevitable in the writing profession.