A Prayer for the Disappointed Writer

On Memorial Day, I strolled through my local flower market. (If you’re paying attention, this blog post should have been posted before Memorial Day, but I neglected to check my calendar. My apologies!)

About an hour before the flower market closed, I meandered into one area, and a vendor blurted out, “Would you like to buy some of my products?” I could hear a little panic and desperation clinging to the end of her invitation. I stepped over to her nearly full table of botanically themed, organic lip balms, soaps, lotions, and sprays. She’d chosen beautiful packaging and containers. However, her table’s fullness conveyed a sad story. Even more so, her words revealed something deeper than a bad sales day at a flower market: Deep disappointment.

“I worked so hard on this.”

“It seems impossible for small vendors like me to get ahead.”

“It feels like everything is working against me.”

I stood and listened as she bemoaned the hope that fell short for her. This sweet woman reminded me of authors whom I’ve met at conferences or pitched to me at events. Writers who started out excited and hopeful now wonder whether anyone will ever give them a contract or whether their book will ever sell.

If you’ve felt the dull thud of disappointment as a writer, this post is for you. If you know a writer who’s trying to keep their head and heart from drowning in disappointment, share this post with them.

Disappointment is the gap between what we’d hoped for and what actually happened. Sometimes, disappointment is external. We’d hoped for a book contract or an agent to sign us, but it didn’t happen. Other times, disappointment is internal because our expectations fell short of reality.

Either way, disappointment happens. How we deal with disappointment matters. Here are five principles to help you process disappointment so it doesn’t sink your writing career:

Decide to Become Better, not Bitter.

Disappointment is painful. You can scream if you need to, but may I share some wisdom my dad shared with me when I was in high school? One day, he said “no” to something he could have said “yes” to. While I didn’t outwardly push back against his verdict, I know God gave my dad special insight into my soul. My dad looked at me and said, “Barbara, you have to know how to handle the word no.”

I’ve held onto my dad’s wisdom, and I’ve added to it. I used the following as a main thought during a keynote at the 2025 West Coast Christian Writers Conference: How you handle the word “No” will determine how far you will go.

You have to decide if you’ll allow disappointment to make you bitter or if it will make you a better writer and human. If you decide to allow it to make you better, then commit your words and attitude toward that decision.

Pro tip: Make a decision to stop comparing yourself to the other writers around you. Everyone is on their own journey, so don’t crash because you’re paying attention to someone else’s path instead of your own. This may mean limiting social media for a season, if needed.

2. Process Privately, Keep It Professional Publicly

Hear me on this: Be real with how you feel! You’re not doing yourself any favors by downplaying your disappointment. When your project is rejected or your book sales tank, your heart will hurt, so let it hurt. Don’t keep the sadness a secret, because there’s a chance that sadness could creep into shame, where you’re telling yourself that you’re a terrible writer or you can’t do this. Shame is a toxic gas to a writer and your spiritual self.

This is where writer communities are helpful. Tell your writer colleagues the truth and how you’re angry or hurting. Let God use them to show up for you. We’ve all been there! At the same time, keep it professional online. While you’ve had a setback, how you handle it sets the stage for how editors and publishers will see you in the future. Be careful about bemoaning your writing career online because while it’s only a post for you, every post sets up a personality profile when agents and editors scroll through your social media in the future. Take a break if needed, but stay professional online.

3. Remind Yourself That “For Now is Not Forever.”

Look back at your life a decade ago. Do you remember what you were fighting through? Chances are, you can remember some really challenging moments. Did you make it through? Yes. I don’t know what you went through, but if you’re reading this post, you made it through. Same with your writing career. If you’re disappointed right now, I hate that for you. But, God willing, tomorrow will be a new day, and you can try again.

4. Get Back on the Bike

Why do we tell kids to hop back on a bike after they fall? It’s to protect them from the fear of trying again. The same goes for us. We can make up terrible stories in our minds after a writing failure. The best gift we can give ourselves is to “get back on the bike.”You have permission to move at the speed that works for you and to take the time that you need. Journaling may be a good option, if you’re not ready to start a new project. It could look like writing articles instead of a new manuscript. Maybe it’s working on your platform. You choose.

5. Surrender What You Can’t Control.

Have you heard of the saying, “Expectations are premeditated resentments”? When we hold onto a picture of how we think our writing careers will go, we set ourselves up for disappointment. (Side note: For those who are Christians, let’s be careful about assuming God will act on our timeline just because we’ve prayed about something.)

Letting go of control over what happens is how we can have peace when the path takes longer, detours, or, in some places, hits a dead end. Surrender gives us hope that, when we’ve done all we can and leave the rest in God’s hands, we can trust that God will lead us toward what’s best for us. Sometimes–often–it looks different from what we’d planned, but when we trust Him, we’ll realize that He knew best all along.