What Makes a Writer Successful?

Writing is in the blood. It must be, or else why would you do it? Like drinking water, writing must be done; however, when does one become “successful” at writing? Is it when a book deal lands on the desk? Perhaps success means a promotion into a managerial position that, surprisingly, doesn’t allow you to write much at all. Plopping the term senior in front of your writing title says something, but does it really connote seniority in your writing career, or is it a title to impress the clients you work with? What makes a writer successful?

For me, success looks like banging out a few pages of my WIP each week. This may not seem like much, but the effort has led to almost 100,000 words in four years, tucked between working as a copywriter, editor, and single mom. Baby steps deliver success. How do I know this? I’ve completed four books and published three of them under the guidance of my former literary agent. Just getting from query to full read, and then an offer of representation was my idea of success. That I didn’t achieve a Stephenie Meyer level of fame and fortune does not mean I wasn’t successful. The experience itself was the reward.

The outward appearance of my corporate copywriting career, however, has seen little upward movement. Sometimes this makes me doubt my success. There are fellow writers I worked with in the 1990s who are now global senior vice presidents of giant creative firms. I applaud their trajectories, but also question why mine has been more landscape than portrait in nature. Driven? Yes, I am, but not to become a manager and spend all my time handling other writers’ work. That may be the reason I’m not a creative director–it is a choice. It may be your choice, too. Although I have seen a promotion or two as an editor (a job I relish because it’s fun to find mistakes and fix copy), my copywriting history is mostly linear, and I am just fine with that. Does this mean that I’m not capable of managing people? Of course not. I’ve led a team of writers and graphic designers as a magazine editor. Junior writers have looked to me for guidance. It’s all relative, and it may be for you, too.

There are no hard, defined answers for what makes a writer successful. Just as you are an individual, so too is your writing career. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else and think that you’re less of a success with the written word. Ultimately, you are fulfilling your writerly DNA, which is the most success that any of us could hope for.