Can being an optimist help you succeed as writer?

I think really helps

I received an email today - you know the one - confirmation that something bad you suspect is going to happen, is actually happening. I put my phone down and went downstairs to make coffee. I popped on to instagram and commenting on a post that made me smile. I looked out in to the sunny garden and wondered if I should put a load of washing on and would I get it outside in time to take advantage of the mild sunny weather?

Does this ability to get on with my day mean I’m getting good at life bombs? (the email was definitely a life bomb involving my disabled son’s care package that will have a big impact on us). Is this me being zen, riding on the waves of life? Detached. Just rolling with it?

Or am I so used to being thrown from the boat that I’m accustomed to swimming in a stormy sea, just glad I have some kind of life jacket on (coffee and sunshine are the life jacket in this scenario) and optimistic that I’ll be able to climb back in the boat. Eventually. Or maybe a different boat will come along?

Photo by Madison Oren on Unsplash

I have always been an optimist. A person who believes good things are likely to happen in the future. Someone who is hopeful. Not that I don’t rage at things going wrong (I often do and boy have things *gone wrong*) but after an initial meltdown, I tend to channel that rage into making the future look brighter again.

I was listening to

Gretchen Rubin

in a conversation with Jonathan Van Ness about how the research shows optimistic people tend to be happier, healthier and have better relationships. This makes sense to me - if you believe that good things are possible, isn’t it more likely you’ll take action towards those good things, making it more likely that they’ll happen?

I began to understood this years ago, when I became a single parent to two kids, one with very high needs and no family around me, that optimism was more than just a trait but something I could cultivate and keep alive. A value to live by. Optimism wasn’t blind (as the saying goes) but something that can give you vision of what you want in the future.

After listening to Gretchen talk about this topic, I started thinking about all the ways in which optimism has played a part in my writing. Would I have entered an essay competition that landed me my first publication alongside writers I admired, if I wasn’t a bit optimistic? Would I have plowed all that time and energy into the proposal of my first book, if I hadn’t been able to envision a future where someone might see value in it and commission it?

Which brings me to the question, is it even possible to be a writer without optimism?

The act of writing, just like any form of art, is bringing something into being that does not yet exist in the world. It’s making something from nothing. We have to believe that somewhere out there, readers might care what we have to say. Is there anything more optimistic than that?

A couple of years ago, a book I worked very hard on went out on submission. When my agent asked me just before it went out ‘and what if it doesn’t sell?’ I barely had to think about it before I gave her my answer. ‘I’ll write something else,’ I told her. Because I couldn’t imagine any other possibility.

That book did not sell. And it was hard and I felt sad about it. But I did, indeed, write something else. Maybe some people would call that foolish. Who does that? Spends all that time (god so much time….) on a book that doesn’t sell and they go on to do it all over again?

But I did go on. And I published another book. I’m working on something new now and I’m excited about it. I don’t know what will happen with it but I’m optimistic.

Gretchen Rubin

said something else that really interested me on the podcast. She talked about how it can be hard to ‘think ourselves’ into an optimistic outlook but that action can lead to optimism. Taking action can be an antidote to feeling hopeless. When we keep going despite failures and outcomes we don’t want or expect, it can help us feel more hopeful again. I have found this to be very true of writing. Starting a new project after a failure, is the only real cure for feeling overwhelmed, immobilised by that failure.

I spent a lot of time over the past 6 months thinking abut my work as a book coach and how I can best help support other writers. I love teaching and coaching writers through their non-fiction book proposals but I felt something was still missing. I thought a lot about what I need and want as a writer and what it really comes down to is anything that helps me continue to take action. Action that leads to optimism, to meeting deadlines, to taking risks and seeing them through to the end, no matter the ultimate outcome.

So I built The Fold. It’s a place where optimism meets action. A membership for writers who need that boost to keep them going through long manuscripts and proposals. It’s about getting the work done, in imperfect and very real ways.

Community is so often the answer to taking action and I think it’s because optimism is catchy. What I’m hoping is The Fold will be our very own fly wheel - action leading to optimism, leading to more action, and so on.

We don’t often know what the outcomes of our writing will be - whether we will reach financial success, or critical acclaim, or if we’ll even find our readers… But I think if we can find the optimism within us, we can keep going. And perhaps that is the most important metric of success for a writer that there is.