If you are to be a writer who will be recognized, you must have faith that you have been created to be a writer, that writing is a destiny toward which your life has been aimed. Virginia Wolf and Toni Morison felt that way, and James Joyce, Dylan Thomas, and Ernest Hemingway. Many writers we haven’t heard of yet, but will, also feel that way. The faith that you are fated to be a writer is a writer’s first requirement. You must believe that it is when you are writing that you’re doing what you were brought into the world to do.
That sense of being fated stirs writers to action: now they must go out to embrace with their whole being their writer’s destiny, to accept it, to resolve to be it, to realize their writer’s vocation, and not flee from it the way many people flee from the heights they could have reached.
As a gift to you–a person with a literary talent–nature has singled you out. You have been specially endowed with not only “creative stuff” that is the source of achievement in all the arts and is possessed by only a minority of people, but with personal qualities that equip you specifically to fulfill the writer’s demanding role–energy, high intelligence, curiosity, a love of your language, a dictionary in your head of favorite words, the playfulness of a child, doggedness, discipline, daring, intuition, intensity, deep emotions, imagination, self-assurance, a warrior’s courage, the stamina of athletes, maturity, refined taste and wise judgment.
History shows that writers who will amount to anything also all have an attitude of “seriousness” about their work and their lives: “This is my only life; I am not playing games. I try to write every day. I strive to get better and better still and will do that all my life.”
It is the identity of a writer that gives you the confidence that you are a person with a definite life task—to write, to spend your life writing, to create poems, stories, novels, dramas, screen plays, essays–whatever form of literature you desire that comes out of you assembled in your own words, fashioned from the disappointments and glories of your own life, different as your life and your writing are from the life and writing of all other writers who are alive now or have ever lived.
Writing–the physical acts of writing, the movement of your muscles to write, your eyes to focus, the shifting of your weight in the chair–is so essential to writers that if they are prevented from writing for any reason, they will be tense and conflicted until circumstances change and once again they are able to write freely, confidently, and without holding back. And then, as though touched by a healer with extraordinary powers, they will be well again.
As a writer you must be true to your awesome potential–must be in fact what you are potentially. If you are not doing enough with your gifts, your conscience lets you know. The conscience of a writer asks, “Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? Have I become what I should have become? If I have not become what I should have become, what will I do now?” Your writer’s conscience is the voice that calls you to be the person you are fully prepared to be, the uniquely talented writer you have been created to be.
© 2023 David J. Rogers
For my interview from the international teleconference with Ben Dean about Fighting to Win, click the following link:
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or
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Writers and artists throughout history have feared and hated rejections of their work.
Each rejection compounds the effects of the previous rejections and can lead writers and artists from heights of blissful optimism to the total disappearance of confidence. Yet without 
respond when editors reject their work, and there it was, the questions “What is winning? Is winning the only thing that matters? Is getting published the only thing that matters? Is that the only credential that makes you a significant literary person?”
I remember once learning that a publishing house I was interested in submitting to typically received 5,000 unsolicited manuscripts a year. Less than seventy would be published. What about those thousands of disappointed writers? I’m sure they had worked very hard and had high hopes. But their hopes would be shattered. Are they to conceive of themselves as failures? Are they supposed to give up hope of ever being successful?
You are winning and not failing when you are persistent in spite of setbacks, are able to recover quickly, and are resilient.
You are winning and not failing when you are 
Those are the ways you are really winning even during those times when it feels like you are not.
books is the lucrative and exciting field of public speaking which in my case changed my life, evolving in a wholly unexpected way, with a momentum of its own and with little effort on my part, from writing to speaking to large audiences for large fees.
Now that COVID is more under control we will be getting back to normal life. Among the changes will be the return of the on-site public speaker who for the past two years has been absent. That will open opportunities for author-speakers. More organizations, associations, and companies will no longer need remote conferences but will again be putting on in-person conferences, seminars, and classes for which they will need quality speakers.
Mark Twain, considered by many to be the greatest American writer of all time, is a prime example of a writer who was a gifted speaker. In his day he was known for his public speaking almost as much as for his writing.
published I was a seasoned public speaker to small groups of no more than about two hundred people. But because of the popularity of both those books–traditional print best sellers–I jumped to speaking engagements involving much larger audiences for high fees in North America and Europe. I was then “in the chips” from royalties and lecture fees.
Always aim to be the keynoter. Make that a goal you will eventually reach. Be 
use of language to entertain, educate, and persuade–the goals also of speeches. They are trained and educated to write. If you are to succeed as a public speaker you must first write polished speeches, Good writers are equipped to do that. Writing and public speaking are related talents. The good speaker tells stories as novelists tell stories. Good writers and good speakers are clear. Their choice of words is interesting. They are able to simplify complicated ideas.
where creative work is done in solitude and gone out into the noisy world and through public speaking come in contact with live human beings that open new vistas. Creatives-speakers then see before their eyes how people respond to their ideas and to them. They now interact with people who have come to listen to them and perhaps to meet them, to ask questions and share opinions, to hear what they have to say, and to applaud them–new and gratifying experiences for many writers and artists who never leave their work room.
sincere and genuinely decent person, and that will come across to your listeners. You may not be brilliant, a spell-casting word-smith, or physically appealing, all of which help a speaker. But people will forgive you those deficiencies. If you are a sincere, genuinely decent man or woman the effect on the audience can be potent and positive.
Andrea, a friend—“Andy”–seemed to reach her peak when she had two short stories published in prestigious literary journals at twenty-four and a novel that sold moderately well at twenty-eight. She didn’t think then it would be her peak, but assumed it was a preview of other successes soon to come. But they haven’t come and she’s been wondering what’s wrong with her.
path to solving the problem by admitting she’s found herself on a performance plateau—in a performance rut.
decides they are different. The earlier work was simpler and more heart-felt and sincere. She realizes that she has fallen into a trap of “showing off”–of trying to impress readers with what a good writer she is and how brilliant she is rather than in telling a story in a simple, direct, “Here’s my work, take it or leave it” style.
She also plans to read biographies and autobiographies of writers living and dead who will inspire her.
and he suddenly was rich. On the other hand, when Ernest Hemingway was young and poor in Paris and unable to support his family with his stories he would catch pigeons in the Luxembourg Gardens when the gendarme on duty went into a café during his break, and then take them home and cook them. Some writers, like painters such as Pablo Picasso, love being rich. Picasso said he wanted to work without material worries “like a pauper,” “but with a lot of money.”
What do geniuses talk about? 
One of the problems superb writers face is that they–and no one else–are the best judge of their work and yet they must endure sometimes ignorant, amateurish editors and critics. Henry Miller found himself being abused by editor after editor he submitted work to. He snarled, “Who are these shits? Where do they get off saying such things to me?”
Sherwood Anderson died after swallowing a toothpick with a hors d’ oeuvre at a cocktail party. Katherine Mansfield married a singing teacher eleven years older than herself and abandoned him the morning after their wedding night. George Bernard Shaw said, “Experience is the name everyone gives to his mistakes.”
ready to start writing. Ernest Hemingway had to first sharpen all the pencils he anticipated using that day. Edgar Alan Poe petted his cat before he started. 
Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels, went a year without talking to anyone. Truman Capote’s advice to young writers was to socialize and not “go up to a pine cabin all alone,” because “You reach that stage soon enough.” Voltaire preferred the company of his mistress. He wrote in bed using her back as a desk.
Maurice Valency thought that failure is very difficult for a writer to bear, “but very few can manage the shock of early success.” P.G. Wodehouse said that success comes to a writer rather gradually, and that it is something of a shock to him or her to realize the heights to which they have risen.
Playwright Lillian Hellman said writers are “fancy talkers about themselves.” She said that if she had to give advice to young writers she would say, “Don’t listen to writers talk about writing or themselves.”
davidjrogersftw 
Why Are So Many Talented Writers Unsuccessful?
I’m assuming that you have a writing talent, and that you may even have been the most talented in your class, in your school, and now are the
most talented in your writers’ group, most talented in your home town. That’s something to be proud of. But talent alone isn’t enough to make you a highly successful writer in the competitive field of creative writing in which almost everyone is talented, everyone gifted, and everyone exceptional.
But there are qualities other than talent that will determine how successful, fulfilling, and happy your writing career will be in that competitive world of very talented people. That hard-to-define stuff called talent is just one of the many requirements of the writer who excels. If you are relying solely on the talent you were born with to bring you writing success and happiness you are making a mistake.
Poet John Berryman thought that talent was no more than 20% of a successful poet’s personality, and why shouldn’t the same may be true of novelists, dramatists, screen writers, and essayists? What I’m asking is, “What comprises the eighty percent of a writer’s personality that blended with natural talent brings about success?”
To that question there are innumerable possible answers. According to writers, teachers, critics, and researchers other factors that are important are:
Endurance/ Persistence
Novelist Kurt Vonnegut said that talent was extremely common, but what is rare is endurance, the willingness to endure the sometimes difficult and trying life of the writer. Many writers have come to the conclusion that sheer old-fashioned day-by-day doggedness is the key to writers’ success. In the book The Courage to Write, Ralph Keyes says, “Success as a writer is within the grasp of whoever can tell a story on paper that people want to hear and is willing to persevere, to put up with boredom, frustration, and anxiety. Determined writers will find ways to get published regardless of whether they are brilliant or have a degree from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop.”
Passion, Intensity, Obsessiveness, Willpower, and Patience
Among the personal qualities that cause motivation strong enough to sustain a writer through the inevitable trials, disappointments, setbacks, and self-doubts are those that are not luxuries but necessities for any writer who is in any way serious about writing: passion, intensity, obsessiveness, willpower, and patience. Gertrude Stein said that all of a writer’s work comes out of a passion as a powerful force, and added that if you really have that passion you aren’t able to recognize it because you don’t know what it is to feel any differently. Many people with obsessive compulsiveness–including writers I’ve known–are especially productive not despite that affliction but because of it.
Hard Work, Commitment, and the Hunger for Success
Writing teachers are generally in agreement that it’s not the best, most talented students whose names they see in print in later years, but the hardest workers and the hungriest for success. The students with the most talent but the weakest work ethic who dazzled the class disappear into oblivion, while the hard workers often go on to great achievements. Many prodigiously gifted but poorly motivated people do not end up where gifted people belong: in the upper echelons of their field. Without pursuing all your goals with clear-mindedness, confidence, and commitment over years, you’ll probably quit after repeated failure.
Every writer, as every artist and every actor, who experiences minimal success eventually asks “Should I quit?” or lowers their ambitions. Writers who have achieved a high level of excellence and success are not satisfied to reach merely an acceptable level of performance, but are motivated to pursue increasingly higher goals.
Example of Pursing Increasingly Higher Creative Goals: Frank Loesser
Self-Confidence and The Need to do Your Best
Those who are sure of themselves intensify their efforts when they don’t reach their goal. Studies of high-performers in all the arts show that they are all universally alike: over and over again they are people who believe in trying to excel, in doing one’s best, in working very hard and spending time constructively. They are intensely attracted to their field from their first exposure to it and all through their efforts to develop their skills and their “reach.” In fact, if you have an intense interest in a creative field, that in itself is almost always a sign that you have a natural talent in it.
The Effect of Passing Comments
Talent can be ignited at any time. The cause of motivation to write a 300 page book or continue on the writer’s life path may be nothing more than a passing comment. Simply being told by someone else or telling yourself that you can achieve much more through trying harder will get most people to try harder. Just being told that they are talented is often enough to start people off to develop that talent.
An Analogy
Talent in writing will not bring success unless it is supplemented by other human qualities. Without endurance, determination, intensity, passion for writing, obsessiveness, will power, hard work, commitment, hunger for success, and self-confidence a writer would be analogous to an automobile–beautiful, streamlined, expertly designed–but lacking an engine.
© 2023 David J. Rogers
For my interview from the international teleconference with Ben Dean about Fighting to Win, click the following link:
Order Fighting to Win: Samurai Techniques for Your Work and Life eBook by David J. Rogers
Click on book image to order from Amazon.com
or
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/fighting-to-win-samurai-techniques-for-your-work-and-life-david-rogers/1119303640?ean=2940149174379
Order Waging Business Warfare: Lessons From the Military Masters in Achieving Competitive Superiority
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or
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Filed under Confidence, Developing Talent, Human Potential and Achievement, High Achievement, Intensity, Persistence, Success, Willpower, Writers, Writers' Characteristics
Tagged as Frank Loesser, Gertrude Stein, John Berryman, Kurt Vonnegut, passing comments, Ralph Keyes