Blog Chain: Writing Challenges and Rewards

Blog chain time again! Wahoo! Today’s blog chain topic comes from Eric. He asks What do you find to be the most challenging aspect of being a writer?  What is your greatest reward from writing?

I would have to say that the most challenging aspect is the lack of daily feedback or formal evaluations. When I was a teacher, a student understanding a complicated reading passage or finally getting a grammatical concept made my day. Professionally, my supervisors praising one of my lessens and checking off “4s” and “5s” on their rubric, along with a positive review, gave me a high. As writers, we don’t have that. Yes, we have critique groups and readers, but not daily pats on the back or confirmation that we did something right. To be honest, I don’t need it every single day, every minute, but those days I have a new idea or a passage I totally love or am struggling with whether the last 100 pages were really necessary, an ego boost or some warm and fuzzy wouldn’t hurt. Before I got an agent, I thought that would be enough, that getting an agent would mean my work was worthy. Then I got an agent and she said lots of nice things and I revised a lot too, and then it was all about publication–that’s what would prove it all. If I got published, it would mean I’m a good writer. And now I’m getting published and guess what? Not enough. Shocker. Now my thoughts are that success means lots of books and awesome reviews and on and on and on. Oh yes, the question. Biggest challenge. Validation. But I’m learning I need to give that to myself or I’ll keep chasing forever.

Biggest reward? Being able to do what I dreamed of since I was a kid. My self-esteem issues aside, having a block of time to write undisturbed, experiencing the euphoria that comes with blocking out everything else around me, allowing myself to be transported to my characters’ worlds, still thinking about my characters hours and days later, the feeling of excitement when I’m on to something good with a new idea or fixed an old one that I didn’t think was salvageable. All these things are amazing and make the challenging part of writing more than worth it.

What are your writing challenges and rewards? Yesterday, Christine had this to say. And tune in tomorrow for Sarah’s take.


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