Most business writers start off with a love of language and the craft of good writing. They genuinely want to help communicate worthwhile messages in a way that best suits an intended audience.
But something often goes wrong. Many business writers become bitter and crabby. They cross the line from audience advocacy into indignant ignorance. They grouse, kvetch, and scold. They pay more attention to what they see as bad writing than they do to their skills and beliefs.
And as a writer, I can understand why. Writing for business stakeholders can be a thankless job. Frustrations mount. They stifle joy.
Seven of the most common frustrations:
- Everyone thinks they’re a writer, regardless of talent or experience. Writers have to wade through a flood of off-base, unhelpful comments and ungrammatical edits. It’s maddening.
- Hierarchy often trumps quality. Business writers don’t always have the final say on messaging or phrasing, even on details that they are in the best position to decide.
- Bad writing is everywhere. It’s hard not to notice the endless garbage online, so it’s hard to fend off resentment and stifle reactions.
- New topics can be intimidating. When writers feel exposed by a complex topic or an expert who is steeped in it, they sometimes get defensive instead of embracing the joy of articulating new ideas.
- AI is terrifying. Some writers just attack it. Others insist it’s a tool that won’t replace them. But we don’t really know where AI will be in 12 months or what decisions clients or employers will make.
- Many business writers are would-be creators. They are novelists, poets, and playwrights who don’t feel great about the compromises they’ve made to earn a living from business writing.
- The content mentality leads to despair. The content-industrial complex stands for more, more, more, faster, cheaper, and worse than ever before. Writers have no hope of winning.
I want to be very honest about the fact that I’ve felt all these frustrations, too. I can list them because I have seen and felt them. And deeply.
But I also see a way out. The way out leads back through the same path as the way in. Instead of submitting to frustration, commit to joy.
The Bhagavad Gita offers some helpful perspective. Renounce attachment to the fruits. Be even-tempered in success and failure. You can read that in many ways.
Think of the Supreme Lord and Brahma as the source of joy. Your joy can emerge from the adventure of learning new things and helping people put their best foot forward. Learn and grow.
And think of yoga as mindful practice. Your practice as a writer is your craft, the poise and grace of assembling balanced sentences that work perfectly together. Write your own stuff, too.
“You have the right to work, but for the work’s sake only. You have no right to the fruits of work. Desire for the fruits of work must never be your motive in working. Never give way to laziness, either.
Perform every action with you heart fixed on the Supreme Lord. Renounce attachment to the fruits. Be even-tempered in success and failure: for it is this evenness of temper which is meant by yoga.
Work done with anxiety about results is far inferior to work done without such anxiety, in the calm of self-surrender. Seek refuge in the knowledge of Brahma. They who work selfishly for results are miserable.”
