6 Embarrassing Things Great Writers Will Never Tell You

Past the facade of the next “5 Things That’ll Supercharge Your Energy” advice lies a writer, alone, typing at a keyboard.

When they press publish, posts go viral. They get showered with tweets and comments. They make boatloads of cash.

You know what, though?

Most of us don’t care.

The millions of views that we get. The thousands of dollars we might make. Most of us shrug it off as if $3,000 couldn’t be a downpayment on a freaking car.

Over time, the writer lifestyle gets just as monotonous as any other “job” out there, but you’d never know it, because all we do is pump out articles consistently every single day without fail. We seem invincible.

You don’t know what we think behind the scenes. Today, I’ll tell you.

1. We Only Care About The Views

Well, ONLY is a bit of a strong word there. I know a lot of really amazing writers and most us care a whole lot about the views. We talk about platforms changing just as much as anybody else out there in Facebook groups and such.

I know a famous writer who wrote an insanely viral article that took over the internet. He got a random message from Ben Hardy asking him how many email subscribers he got days afterwards.

We care about metrics way more than we tend to let on.

2. We Get Jealous Of Each Other

I’m jealous of many amazing writers. I don’t mind saying that.

Again, I know a lot of great writers and it’s shocking to me how much jealousy we display in private conversations with one another. On the surface we congratulate each other for viral articles (see point #1), but underneath we’re jealous that we aren’t getting the top spot.

I’m so happy I know a lot of fantastic writers, but seeing other people find so much success is like seeing everybody you went to high school with start ludicrously successful acting careers.

You start to wonder what’s wrong with you, especially when you take the next point into account..

3. We’re Hypocrites

We don’t always practice what we preach. You’d be surprised how many embarrassing breakdowns I’ve seen respectable writers have right in front of my eyes.

I’m not perfect by any stretch of the imagination — I tell troublesome viewers of my live stream to f*ck off all the time like Gordon Ramsay or something — but then again I don’t write articles about how to be the most calm, humble person either.

There’s some folks who do things in real life that go directly against their online persona — and it IS a persona!

Don’t be so quick to buy into the brand that certain writers make for themselves. They’re probably not being honest — and even when they are being “honest” and showing “vulnerability,” they’re just using that to garner more views because they know vulnerability is a lightning rod for attention.

4. We Flirt With Quitting

I know a few writers who used to be around 3–4 years ago. Heck, even two years ago. Now they’re a ghost. Even Kris Gage stopped posting stuff recently.

I stopped vlogging about two months ago because it was too damn boring. I couldn’t bring myself to make another video, and for many writers, they reach the point of no return as well.

Great writers struggle with this more than anybody because they’re the ones who’ve been around for years, not just two weeks.

5. We Get Rejected, Too

Not everything we write is gold. We’re not like King Midas. Sometimes a submission we send in doesn’t make the cut for many of the big publications out there.

We get rejected just like everybody else. Just like Lebron James sometimes loses games and plays like crap, we also write like crap sometimes.

6. We’re Not Always Confident

Our performance can be bad, but so can our confidence.

Right now my confidence is actually lower than usual. It may be because I got a total of 3 hours of sleep last night, but it’s actually normal to feel this way sometimes.

It’s good to not feel confident because it makes you work harder. It makes you want to prove yourself.

Your Favorite Writers Are Only Human

I’m guilty of every single one of these “secrets” myself, and no I’m not just being vulnerable to get your sympathy.

I’m telling you the truth, which is all I try to do in everything I write anyway.

Writing isn’t always neat. Sometimes we will ourselves to writing an article to meet a quota. Sometimes we write one thing and act completely different. It’s because we’re human beings.

We’re not without our errors. Sometimes we’re just a bunch of flawed people who are trying to be honest about the world and help others.