Early in my teaching career, I realized that writing succees breeds a desire for more writing. As with most endeavors, we continue to do and enjoy something that we excel at.

I used to teach composition, the dreaded and required English course for lower division college students. My students would freely admit on the first day of class that they hated to write. I’m pleased to say that by the end of the course, many came up to me privately and admitted that writing wasn’t so bad. I even had a student choose a major (history) with a lot of writing because she had overcome her dislike for the activity. I was pleased and astonished. That’s one reason I teach.

From listening to their experiences with writing before my class, invariably I heard histories filled with papers marked with red ink – like a bleeding corpse – and pain at their valiant yet unsuccessful attempts at writing.

I saw that part of my job was to encourage these “failed” writers, to let them feel success with their writing, so that they could feel good about themselves as writers.

I sympathized with my students because I, too, had suffered from lack of confidence as a writer for most of my career.

I wrote and self-published my first book in 1980. Several other books followed with some success, but I never felt I was “a writer.”

It wasn’t until a small publisher (Children’s Book Insider) asked if they could publish my books, rewritten to their specifications, that I finally felt I could succeed as a writer. This single request boosted my confidence enormously.

And then a traditional publisher (NTC Contemporary Publishing) asked me to write a composition textbook. I remember standing in my doorway, on my way in from the mailbox, reading the letter that asked me to write the book. I don’t remember if I cried or not (probably did), but that was the moment I knew I was a writer. That was 19 years after I published my first book. That’s a long time to find confidence as a writer.

My baby steps took a long time because each time I’d get a rejection, even an insignificant one, I’d see the rejection as a sign that I wasn’t supposed to be writing that genre or type. So I skipped around the writing map a lot, trying different types of writing, nonfiction and fiction, before I accepted the idea that I preferred to write books more than articles, screenplays more than novels. And until recently, I preferred writing for kids more than adults. I’ve now grown up enough to write for adults in my fiction with my main characters being 40 or older.

From my own experiences and those of my students, I have found that success with writing breeds a desire to do more writing, which leads to more success. It’s a delightful cycle. So in a word, writing is an activity that builds on success.

I’ll talk about writing as empowering for the writer, and for others, in another post.

Have you had an experience of moving from dislike to like, failure to success as a writer? Tell your story in the comment below.

Do you want to use this blog in your ezine or on your blog? You have permission, as long as you send notice of publication with a link, to katie@ploegersservices.com,

and include the following paragraph with links intact in your post:
Katherine Ploeger, MA, MFA, is a writer, teacher,  consultant. She publishes practical, process-oriented information for nonfiction writers and screenwriters on her blog, Katie’s Writing Notes.  Also check out her information at http://www.ploegersservices.com.