A Useful Trait for Writers in 2024

Embrace your stubbornness

Stubbornness seems like an annoying trait at first glance.

My husband is stubborn when it comes to booking dentist appointments to fix the holes in his teeth. I find it incredibly annoying.

Why would you be stubborn about that?! I love him, but I don’t get it. Surely it’s painful?

But I’ve also seen how stubbornness can also be a positive trait.

When my youngest daughter was four, she wanted to climb between two trees, but the rope was hard to hold and she kept slipping off. After a few failed attempts, her hands hurting from the rope, she started to cry.

“It’s okay,” I reassured her. “It’s hard. You don’t have to do it.”

She looked at me like I was an idiot. “I can do it!” She said and started back across the rope. After several more tries, she made it across, beaming with her success.

We need to be stubborn as writers. There’s pain to push through. (Ever tried finishing a book?)

Repeated failures. (All those rejections!)

Like that rope, writing success can be damn slippery!

Stubbornness is a trait to cultivate in 2024.

• Stubbornly get that book written.

• Stubbornly submit that article again and again until it finds a home.

• Keep going until you improve enough to be paid for your work

• Cry if you have to, but sit back down and create words on your page until it’s done.

Here’s to starting the year determined to make it to the other side with your writing!

What does that look like for you this year?

Kelly xx