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How Passion Can Make or Break Your Writing Career

by | Mar 26, 2014

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you likely fall into one of these two categories:

  1. You’re passionate about writing and want to learn as much as you can about the industry

  2. You think writing sounds like a great way to make easy money from home, and you want in on the riches

People from one of these groups are likely to build solid writing careers, while those from the other group are inevitably going to crash and burn. Pretty obvious, isn’t it?

Using passion is crucial to fuel your writing career. If you’re 100 percent committed to writing for a living, you stand a better chance of succeeding than if you’re just in it for the money.

If you’re not sure whether you love writing enough to make a serious go at it, it’s time for a gut check.

Why passion is important

Passion is the driving force to success.

In a technology forum at BYU, Mark Zuckerberg said:

“I think it’s important if you’re going to take on any big challenge, that you just love and really have faith in what you’re doing. That I think is the most important advice I would say, more than any specific technical thing about how to build a company.”

Billionaire Warren Buffett also said, “You have to love something to do well at it.”

And what about Steve Jobs? He said, “People with passion can change the world for the better.”

These insanely successful people have one thing in common: they all believed in themselves and had a passion for what they did.

Here’s why passion will help you succeed:

  • You’ll put in the hours to learn the craft.

  • You’ll be energized to work towards your big writing dreams.

  • You’ll keep writing even when you don’t see results.

To use your passion to your biggest advantage, make sure you do these two things:

Continue learning. No writer’s talents ever peak. Keep learning and keep improving.

Share your passion with the world. Publish a blog post. Self-publish a poetry collection. Submit your novel to publishers. Whatever project it is, share it with others.

How to find your writing passion

Simply being passionate about writing doesn’t always guarantee success; you also have to have a passion for what you’re writing about.

Explore your passions and you’ll be driving yourself toward success:

  • Look at your current passions and hobbies. Can you write about those?

  • Test drive different subjects and decide which ones you enjoy writing about.

  • Create meaningful goals to help you on your journey.

  • Try different types of writing (poetry, fiction, blogging, etc.) to get a better idea of what type of writing you enjoy.

  • Write for 15 minutes a day about anything. You’ll begin gravitating toward the things you love most.

  • Step away from your computer and start trying new things.

For a more in-depth exploration of your writing passion, check out Barrie Davenport’s post on “6 Key Steps to Finding Your Passion as a Writer” at Write to Done.

How has passion helped you succeed as a writer?