New writers fail to understand one thing. Writing is hard. It is not an easy option. It is not something that you do when all else fails. It does not matter if you swim in writing inspiration - that you are full with ideas for novels, scripts and articles. Writing inspiration must be tied to writing discipline. In other words, you must have the desire to write as well as the ability to write but above all else you must have the discipline to write, consistently, day after day, year after year.
To be a successful writer you need to be in control, to be able to dictate how, when and where you are going to write. Self discipline is the most powerful weapon in your writing arsenal. Without it, all other skills that you might possess are useless.
You might have the most perfect language skills, write prose like Shakespeare, be able to network and make connections, you might even have the ability to write 65 words a minute but unless you have the discipline to apply these skills, you are doomed to failure.
A writer must be more like Rocky, if he wishes to succeed.
This might seem like strange advice but take it from me, if you become more like Rocky, you will have a greater chance of success than any prodigious talent. Watch Rocky 1, 2 and 6 and you will see what I mean. Think about it for a moment, think about what Rocky is really about, the underdog, the no hoper, the talentless nobody who goes on to challenge the boxing champion of the world. The Philadelphia bum, who aspires only to go the distance with Apollo Creed, transforms into a boxing legend and becomes an inspiration to us all.
Ah, I hear you say, but that's only a story, a film script, that can't happen in real life. It can and it does happen in real life. Everyday talented and not so talented individuals get their chance, sometimes they succeed; more often they don't.
Why do so many writers fail?
To be successful is to be driven, to be prepared for sacrifice and all too few of us are prepared to give anything up. The road becomes too hard to travel and so we give up, we don't fight for what we believe, for what we desire. The result is failure to achieve our objectives.
So I will repeat this again. To succeed you need to be more like Rocky. You must be determined, disciplined, prepared to make sacrifices and above all you must be prepared to take the pain. For Rocky the pain was physical, for a writer pain manifests itself internally as fear, despondency and lack of confidence. You're job is to conquer all of them, to rise above the challenge and push through the barrier that prevents you from achieving your writing goals.
Be more like Rocky and you will find your writing inspiration flow free and fast. If it helps there is one line from the last film that always plays in my head; "It doesn't matter how hard you hit, it's how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward".
The question now is how hard can you get hit, how often can you pick yourself up off the ground and keep moving forward?
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