Depression and Writing

[Rod Stewart]

Hi. Has anyone ever felt this? Depression in writing? I've been writing stories since I was 13 - now 32, I feel frustrated that I haven't gotten anything published. However, I've never sent anything to a publisher or spoken to an agent. I love to write, but my depression has given me a deep sense of self-doubt about my writing, and I don't feel I'm good enough, even though a lot of people have said, "Write a novel, I'd love to read it," or "100% in your English course? Wow! Why aren't you writing books?" Or, "You have a great imagination, write a novel..."

But I've wasted so much time not doing anything about it, and it depresses me. Any advice?

[aptpupil]

Rod, you don't give any great detail about your writing. Do you write short stories or full-length novels? Have you actually completed any? And if so, why haven't you tried your luck with any publishers or literary agents? Every aspiring writer goes through stages of thinking that they are are a major talent waiting to be discovered, to be followed by periods of thinking that they're fooling themselves in believing that they have any real talent at all.

You're still relatively young for a novelist. Life experience often makes us better writers. We can't all be youthful prodigies like SK himself. If you're not confident about anything you've written so far, pack it away somewhere and start again. I didn't get the idea for my first novel until I was about the age that you are now. When I finally got it finished a few years ago, I sat on it for a while, not quite knowing what to do with it, but then I did some research, identified a handful of publishing houses/literary agents who had an interest in my kind of writing (similar genre to SK), paid for a handful of photocopies of the manuscript and sent them off. I didn't get a deal out of it, just a few rejection letters that I've framed for posterity, but one agent did alert me to a new self-publishing company who were offering special rates to attract new clients, so I approached them and had my book very professionally self-published (it's still available on Amazon today). I'm now writing the follow up, and have been in touch with a major publisher in London who have seen my first effort and have expressed a preliminary interest in the new one.

So, if you've got anything completed, and you're satisfied that you've done as well as you possibly could with it, send it off to a few agents. You just might be pleasantly surprised. And don't worry about the depression. Writing is a solitary occupation, we're all riddled with a degree of self-doubt, so you'll have some times like that. It's not necessarily a negative, mild depression can actually be a creative state of mind. Trust me, I've been there.

[Bryan James]

Rod,

If you've been writing that long, you probably have quite an impressive body of work.

Sure, some of it may be junk, but generally sheer volume ensures that something will stick to the wall. Friends and relatives are the worst critics...everything you do is great...and they give you a false sense of security.

If YOU love to write, well...that can be enough, can't it?

If you want to test the water in the pool, don't just stick a toe in...do a major bellyflop from the highdive!

Many writers have high levels of depression anyway, and they get to a point where they're not scared of anything. Some of them turn out to be fabulous, and then they get depressed all over again because they wasted time.

Give it a twirl...and stick a nail in your wall to collect the slips. Laugh at them. Heck, pee on them from time to time (take them outside first).

If you love to write, that's enough...and it usually shines through to the Reader. Most of us can usually see a lie from the first paragraph.

GOOD LUCK!

BJS

[Ubasti]

I think it's most important that whatever you do - writing, drawing, painting, music - you do it for yourself first and foremost. Putting your self and your work out there for others is a very scary thing, but if you really want to get published then it's a risk you have to take. You will be turned down .... over and over again, but that happens to so many artists. It's part of the game. You can always start small with magazine submissions. Good luck