Seeing the Whole Picture

How Perseverance Turned the Chaos of Authorship into an Authorship Compass

A writer’s desk full of research, a laptop, crumpled paper, and reading glasses.

It Started With Writing

When I decided to become an author and create an authorship career, I knew one thing for certain: I wanted to write. So, I wrote and wrote and wrote.

What I didn't know was everything else.

I understood that creating an authorship career would involve more than writing a story, poem, or book. However, I had no idea how many moving pieces there would be—or how much I would need to learn.

So, I hit the internet and searched for information. I followed blogs, read websites, subscribed to newsletters, took classes, joined writing groups and communities, and kept looking for the next piece of information that might help me understand what I was supposed to be doing.

Yet somehow, the more I learned, the more overwhelmed I became.

A Wall of Information

‍One of the best decisions I made early in my writing career was to go to my local library and ask to speak with the Writer in Residence.

‍Lynda Monahan helped me with my first book, written for my mom, and later gave me sage advice as I worked on Plainfolk. She also suggested that I join the Saskatchewan Writers Guild.

‍That was my first writing community.

Eventually, I found more communities online. I met writers, learned from people who knew things I didn't know, and discovered resources I didn't even know existed.

‍My coauthor, Clennell Anthony, and I met through The Write Practice, and I am forever grateful that this connection gave me a writing sister. Communities helped me persevere.

‍But my curiosity and my propensity for research had another side. I kept finding more information. And more. And more.

Before long, I was once again staring at a wall of information.

A desk strewn with papers, journals, pens, sticky notes, crumpled paper, and a laptop.

‍What was I missing?

‍For years, I thought perhaps I simply needed to learn one more thing.

• Another writing technique.

• Another publishing option.

• Another marketing strategy.

• Another class.

• Another answer.

Then I had a realization.

I thought about the university textbooks I had appreciated most. They didn't simply give me pages and pages of information. They gave me a table of contents. Sometimes they even had an expanded table of contents with a brief explanation of what each chapter contained.

‍There it was.

‍The whole subject at a glance. And I realized that was what I had been missing from my authorship career. I didn't need another isolated answer.

‍I needed an outline. I needed to see the whole thing.

‍

From Confusion to a Map

What does it actually take to create an authorship career?

I gathered all the information I had collected over the years and made a list. I reviewed it multiple times and began assembling it into common themes.

Three themes kept emerging:

• Writing

• Interiority

• Business

Seeing those three areas together changed my perspective.

Writing was obviously part of being an author. So was the inner work of transforming yourself into the person who will sustain this chosen career.

Not to mention the business side, which has just as many pieces: publishing, marketing, audience building, planning, and all the other practical pieces that make an authorship career possible.

For the first time, I saw how the pieces fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. The neat grid on the paper looked simple. My life as an author did not.

But that piece of paper helped me understand what I was working on, where I was spending my time, and where the gaps might be.

I had created an Authorship Map.

A page taken from my Authorship map is a grid with a list of elements on the left. The elements are divided into 3 categories: Writing, Interiority, and Business

When a map becomes a compass

A map gives me an overview. A compass helps me use that overview to decide where I am and in which direction I need to go to reach the next stop.

I look at it and ask myself:

•  Am I spending all my time writing?

• Am I learning and researching instead of writing?

• Am I paying attention to the business side of my career?

• What am I avoiding?

• Do I need accountability?

• Is there something I need to learn, or am I simply using learning as a way to procrastinate?

Those questions have become important because I know how easily I can disappear down a research rabbit hole. I love learning. But if I spend all my time researching and never write, eventually there won't be a book to publish or a business to build around it.

With the Authorship Map, I gain insight into this.

Perseverance Became Insight

Looking back, the answer wasn’t that I finally learned everything I needed to know. Far from it.

The breakthrough came when I organized what I had already learned into a framework that finally made sense to me.

Seeing how all the pieces fit together was my aha moment!

 That realization came through perseverance.

Perseverance is displayed in many ways. Sometimes it looks like continuing to write when you're overwhelmed. Sometimes it means asking for help. Sometimes it means joining a community. Sometimes it means sitting with a problem long enough to realize the way you're looking at it needs to change.

For me, perseverance meant continuing to believe that I was building an authorship career—and that somehow, I would figure out how to navigate it.

The Authorship Map helped me see that career more clearly. It reduced some of the mental clutter. It gave me an overview.

And now it hangs on the wall beside my computer monitor, where I find myself looking at it again and again.

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Seeing the Whole Picture

The reality of creating an authorship career is messy. It doesn't fit neatly into a grid. But sometimes we need the grid, anyway. A place to put the pieces. We need to see what we're doing, what we've learned, what we're neglecting, and what might come next.

It turns this Authorship Map into a compass that keeps me on track and shows me the direction I need to head.

I want to share this map because I have never seen a visual framework that brings all these pieces together quite like this. Not because I have figured everything out.

It’s because I know what it feels like to face that confusing wall of information and wonder, “How does this all fit?”

The Authorship Map is my way of stepping back and seeing the whole picture. Other authors may benefit as well.

In future posts, I'll explore the three areas—Writing, Interiority, and Business—in more detail.

‍Here's this map for now, serving as your initial guide. Go to victoriajurgens.com/for-writers and download the Authorship Map for yourself.

‍ Then, let me know how you use it to craft your next project or even your authorship career.‍