“How do you stay committed to a dream when you don’t see immediate results?” That’s the question I asked Jon Acuff, my favorite nonfiction writer, on Monday evening at Barnes & Noble.
Jon was in Orlando doing a book signing and taking questions from the audience before giving a talk about his new book Do Over, what Seth Godin called The best career book ever written.
I asked the question because I’m a new writer.
Although I’ve only been writing for eighteen months, and I’ve seen some momentum, I wanted to understand how long it should take someone new to the craft of writing to see success and also how to stay motivated when it feels like you’re not making as much progress as you’d like to make.
Jon gave me a three-part answer.
Look at the people who came before you and see how long it took them.
Jon said that although it can be dangerous to compare yourself to others, you have to at least understand the journey that other people in your situation went on so you can know what to expect on your own journey. In my situation, he suggested researching other writers to see how long it took them to become successful and using this as a reference point for my own adventure.
While giving me this advice, Jon made a side comment to me about how he actually gets this question a lot but doesn’t believe that very many people who ask that question will actually follow-through and take the advice they are given to heart and actually do what they’re advised to do.
I didn’t want to be that guy.
So I’ve spent the last few days researching writers and how long it took them to find “success.”
Although I just published my 7th nonfiction book – The 4-Minute Morning, I’m currently writing my first novel. So I decided to use James Patterson – love him or hate him – as a reference to see how long it took him to become a full-time writer with 114 New York Times bestselling novels, selling 305 million copies – more than Stephen King, John Grisham, and Dan Brown combined.
I found that Patterson’s first novel was turned down by 19 publishers. Even when The Thomas Berryman Number was published in 1976, it didn’t do much for his writing career. Patterson kept grinding away at the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency and eventually became the company’s North American CEO while he continued to write his novels each day.
It wasn’t until 1993 when Along Came a Spider became his breakout novel. It only took Patterson 17 years to become an overnight success. Although this is just one example, just knowing how long it took James Patterson to see any results really put things in perspective.
Find the cheat codes.
If you’re wondering how I write an inspirational blog post every Saturday morning, it wasn’t by accident. I modeled my style of writing after Jon Acuff. He’s the original, not me. If you want to write, you need to read a lot, and specifically the kind of writing that you want to replicate. Jon’s inspirational blog gave me the motivation to start this one a year ago.
If you’re wondering how I was able to write and self-publish seven books in a year, it wasn’t by accident. I didn’t magically wake up one morning and write a book. I modeled my production schedule after Steve Scott, a guy that writes a book every 30 days – that’s too intense for me but it showed me that it doesn’t have to take years to write a book.
If you’re wondering how I plan on finishing my first novel within 90 days start to finish when I’ve never written fiction before, it wasn’t by accident. I read a book on how to do it by James Frey and then I enrolled in a course on writing fiction by James Patterson.
Jon Acuff calls this finding the cheat codes and said they’re vital to make a dream become reality.
The example he gave on Monday was how adults can struggle to play a video game and our kids will say, “No, this is how to do it,” and take the controller from us and teach us how to get to the next level. Finding the cheat codes can save us time and help us navigate the real life pitfalls that we never would have expected without the advice from someone who’s done what we want to do.
What are you doing every day to work on your dream?
The last part of Jon’s advice on staying committed to a dream had to do with doing the hard work and staying consistent. He said that he’ll often meet someone who says they want to be a writer. So he’ll ask them, “Are you waking up early every day to write before work?” and they’ll say, “No.” “Are you reading books and taking courses to learn the craft?” “And they’ll say, “No.”
“So then, how exactly do you think you’re actually going to become a writer?”
When I looked into James Patterson’s history, I found that he did the same thing I’m doing. He woke up at five o’clock in the morning every day, seven days a week, and wrote for two hours. On weekdays, he wrote before going into his full-time job as an executive at J. Walter Thompson.
If you think dreams will become reality without putting in the hard work, you’re kidding yourself.
If you have a dream, find others who have gone before you to know what to expect on your journey. Find the cheat codes so you can stand on the shoulders of giants. Then get off your butt and actually do something – every single day – to get you one step closer to where you want to be.
Thanks Jon for the writing advice. And thanks to my readers who are on this journey with me.