This week I’ve been thinking about how many of my writing struggles stemmed from a misconception about what what it means to write.

We can all call up the romantic vision of a writer holed up in a log cabin in Vermont, working feverishly in solitude to produce the next great novel (though I’ve never been able to picture this the same way since I watched the movie adaptation of Stephen King’s novel Misery, with Kathy Bates and James Caan).

This lone wolf vision makes sense, right, because after all, the writer is the creator, the one who makes it all happen. The writer writes the book!

For a very long time, I was wedded to this idea. For me, and I suspect for many writers, this myth feeds our sense of identity. We like thinking of ourselves as independent, free thinking, and capable of amazing things. You know, bad asses.

In truth, this vision, like many romanticized things, is deeply misleading.

To disabuse yourself of the lone wolf myth, all you need to do is read the Acknowledgements page of any novel. I finally got my hands on Brandon Sanderson’s most recent book from the library. I think he must have mentioned more than 100 people who helped him make that book a reality. He thanked everyone from his writing group to beta readers to graphic designers to historians to editors and marketers and on and on.

When I was younger, however, I bought into the lone wolf theory both because I was growing to identify as a writer but also, frankly, because I thought that’s how it worked. I didn’t think it was okay to get help. If someone else gave you an idea that found its way into your writing, it robbed you of the ability to call it truly yours.

This perspective led me to put up walls and to resist engaging with other people fully in conversation about the topics I was working on. In the end, my stubborn sense of “what writers do” impoverished my early work, making it far less impactful than it might have been had I been more open.

At a certain point, I realized what was happening and reframed my thinking. These days, I think of myself not as a lone wolf, solely responsible for all the wisdom in my writing, but as a shepherd. My job isn’t to have all the great ideas. My job is to collect and curate as many great ideas as I can find from whatever source into a useful form. My identity doesn’t come from illustrating how smart I am, but from how much my writing helps others.

Embracing this more realistic vision of the writing process has made the whole journey more rewarding. As a lone wolf, I was like the classic driver who gets lost but will never ask for directions. Today, I ask for help when I’m stuck. I seek feedback from readers as I’m writing to make sure what I’m writing is useful for them. If I hit a roadblock, I reach out to my writing group for moral support and brainstorming.

If you’re finding yourself struggling, or need some help, remember that the lone wolf writer is a myth. It takes a village to get your writing done.

Being a writer is still bad ass, though.

Happy writing,

Trevor