Dear Ask Tina, 

After years of plugging away (sometimes half-heartedly and sometimes with full commitment), I’m receiving some writing success. I’ve had a few publications in literary magazines, some of my works have been short-listed for writing contests, I have over 200 subscribers to my Substack, and at the beginning of this year, I learned my memoir will be published in 2026! This is what I’ve been working towards, right? Then, why am I still craving more validation? I obsessively check my submittable account, hoping for the next “accepted” notice. I get bummed out if I don’t get enough likes or comments on my Substack posts. My happiness over a success seems to last a day before I’m right back to feeling insecure and angsty. When it comes to my writing journey, will I ever be satisfied? 

Signed, Never Satisfied 

Dear Never Satisfied,

You do realize, of course, that your endless quest for satisfaction extends beyond the plight of the writer. I believe it was Edison who said, “Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.” And he should know, having allegedly “failed” over a thousand times before inventing a successful light bulb filament. It’s a good thing he was never satisfied, or I’d be writing this response in the dark. 

Satisfaction is not a static state, and for good reason. The all-knowing Internet tells me it’s dopamine’s fault. That feel-good chemical is released when we achieve a goal, but it doesn’t have much-staying power. Our satisfied or jubilant feeling is short-lived because we are supposedly hard-wired to seek new challenges and new rewards. I’m no anthropologist, but I suspect that’s how we made it out of the Stone Age. In other words, If you did ever reach a constant state of satisfaction, you might just stop writing altogether! You’d have no drive. Harvard might also want to study your brain, you’d be such an anomaly. The quest for the next bit of success just might be the fuel that keeps you – all of us – going. 

If I’m reading between the lines correctly, however, I think what you might be asking is why you give rejection or failure more weight than satisfaction. It seems that no amount of success mitigates the potential for failure. Stephen Marche tells us in On Writing and Failure, that failure is the “body of a writer’s life. Success is only ever an attire.” He claims the more successful the writer, the “more fraught the struggle.” Prolific writers who’ve achieved any level of fame have, according to Marche, a fear of sinking into obscurity. Think Vanilla-Ice; it’s the one-hit-wonder phenomenon actors and musicians face, too. What you might really be asking is, “What happens if I never get another acceptance email?” 

I don’t know how to answer that one except to say of course you will! But my answer won’t solve anything. You are just like the rest of us, born with a pesky thing called “negativity bias,” otherwise known as a striking ability to remember and dwell on the negative more than the positive. Apparently, we have a stronger emotional reaction to the negative. This makes sense for writers, maybe more so than many professions, simply because writers collect more rejection notes than acceptance ones. Even the Chicken Soup for the Soul authors, Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, collected 144 rejections before publishing their first outrageously successful book. So, If I’m following the theory correctly, your brain has been imprinted with the emotions surrounding rejection. That imprint is stronger than the joy you feel when you achieve writing success. The negative imprint might be impacting your ability to feel good for any length of time after each writing success. 

Which is all a long way of saying, don’t worry, Never Satisfied, you’re normal! You are doing the hard work, but you are not immune from the satisfaction conundrum. In fact, you don’t want to be satisfied! You’re already doing exactly what any successful writer needs to do: persevering. Jack Canfield offered some advice, on his Facebook page of all places: “… reject rejection. If someone says no, just say NEXT!” Sounds like that is exactly what you’re already doing. And, clearly, you are doing it well. Kudos, on your successes! You’re killing it. Now, get back to work.

Source:

Marche, S. (2023). On writing and failure, or, on the peculiar perseverance required to endure the life of a writer. Biblioasis.

For more information about negativity bias: 

Rozin, P., Royzman, E. B. (2001). “Negativity bias, negativity dominance, and contagion.” Personality and Social Psychology Review. 5(4): 296–32.

To make yourself feel better about rejection, read this: 

“Ten Rejection Letters Sent to Famous People“ from MentalFloss.com 

Do you have a writing-related dilemma? Send your questions to asktina@projectwritenow.org. Selected questions will be featured in upcoming columns, and Tina will ensure her answers offer valuable insights for writers facing similar challenges.