Episode Description
In times of economic uncertainty, industry upheaval, and personal burnout, it can feel impossible to imagine a hopeful future—especially as an author whose dreams are often tied to outcomes beyond their control.
In this episode of What If? For Authors, Claire tackles one of the hardest questions writers face: What if there’s no hope? Drawing on the Enneagram, existential psychology, and real-world author experience, Claire reframes hope not as an emotion or a promised outcome—but as a courageous choice we make, even (and especially) when things feel bleak.
This episode is an invitation to loosen cynicism’s grip, detach hope from specific results, and rediscover the kind of hope that sustains creativity, value-based decisions, and long-term resilience—regardless of what the market, algorithms, or economy are doing.
In This Episode, You’ll Learn:
Why outcome-dependent hope inevitably collapses—and what to replace it with
How losing hope shows up differently for each Enneagram type
Why cynicism feels protective but quietly drains your creative life
How privilege shapes our relationship to hope and “proof”
What sustainable, outcome-independent hope actually looks like in practice
Why you don’t need to feel hopeful to choose hope
Small, concrete ways authors choose hope every day (often without realizing it)
How writing itself can be an act of hope—for yourself and for others
Key Takeaways:
Hope is not a reward for good outcomes—it’s a prerequisite for meaningful action
You can choose hope even when you’re tired, burned out, or unsure
Small choices (rest, water, boundaries, honesty) are legitimate acts of hope
Stories matter precisely because they imagine possibilities beyond present conditions
Resources & Links:
Learn more about Claire’s coaching, courses, and books: liberatedwriter.com
Write Iconic Characters: books2read.com/WIC
Happy writing!
TRANSCRIPT:
Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If For Authors. I'm glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor and I'm an Enneagram certified coach for authors as well as a humor and mystery writer. All my services courses and books for authors could be found@liberatedwriter.com. Go check it out. If you're curious about how you can build a more sustainable author career in uncertain times.
Oh, also, I have a new book out called Write Iconic Characters, all about using the Enneagram to develop realistic and relatable characters that live rent free in the reader's head. You can find that on most major retailers or go to books2read.com/WIC and that's a 2 as in the number 2 books2read.com/WIC.
For some reason I thought I'd already covered today's topic and episode, but if I did, it was just as a side bit of another topic, so I [00:01:00] figured now might be a great time to dive straight into it. Why now? No reason, just, you know, everything happening.
There are pretty seismic shifts, not just in our industry right now, but in the American economy and by extension, the world economy. So things that used to work for our personal finances or business processes are not working as well, or even at all. Those of us who tend to think a few steps ahead or a mile ahead, we may be struggling to see a path to the life that we want.
Depending on your economic situation, this might not be a new thing for you. For many people though, it is, it can feel like waking up from the American dream for the first time, and that's a tough situation to find oneself in. The question becomes, how do we continue to have hope when we can't see a positive path forward or when imagining one feels like a fool's hope.
So in [00:02:00] today's episode, I'm going to address the question many of us might be struggling with silently or very much out loud, which is what if there's no hope
For authors, our hope tends to be that we'll hit it big. Many people will read and love our book, and we'll reach a point where we can rely on our writing for enough money to live and not have to worry that the money will run out. We hope that we'll be appreciated, find security and gain autonomy to live life as we please.
This hope can pretty quickly be dashed from a few months of querying agents or trying to get a new release to take off. Maybe you find a certain promising level of success, but then your next series flops and you realize that maybe just maybe you were gliding more on good luck and fortunate timing with your current series.
Then you realized that realization can be incredibly destabilizing. You will very likely have emotions about it.
Sometimes we also hope [00:03:00] that writing will feel a certain way for us, and then it doesn't live up to that expectation. Maybe we hope it will feel easy or flow well, that our first drafts will be excellent and require very little revision that will look back on our work and be impressed by our own genius.
Or even that each time we sit down to write, it'll feel meaningful in some deep way that it just isn't.
The disappointment of not having these types of hopes fulfilled, can stack up over time, causing us to build an armor of cynicism to protect from the pain of it. It's important to understand that the cynical suit of armor we build to protect us from pain. It's not made of steel, but of lead, and it poisons us over time.
Fortunately, we can reverse the effects of this metaphorical poisoning by removing pieces of the armor. So there's a common thread that runs through the versions of Writerly hopes I've described, [00:04:00] and that's that the hope rides on a specific outcome. This is a common way that we talk about hope, right? I hope this book hits the top 100.
Then if it does, we give ourselves permission to hope for the same or better outcome again. And if it doesn't, we may revoke our hoping privileges in the future to maintain one's ability to hope. It has to stop being contingent upon desired outcomes. We don't control outcomes and hope is an essential motivational element that we cannot continue to function without when looking at motivation, literally what moves us internally and externally.
Hope is essential for growth and healthy decisions that remain in alignment with our values.
Hope generates healthy and productive cognitive patterns of curiosity, exploration and open-mindedness. Hope generates healthy and productive emotional patterns of [00:05:00] compassion, humility, and allowing ourselves to feel emotions without worrying that we'll get stuck in them. And hope generates healthy and productive behavioral patterns of physically caring for ourselves and others.
Selfless courage, community involvement, and yes, typing out the next scene, hope is a motivating force, and without our motivation usually falls back onto that trusty core fear of our Enneagram type, which is always waiting to take back the wheel. When we make hope contingent upon a particular set outcome at a particular time, we're very likely to lose our ability to hope.
The Type one reformer may lose hope that things can change for the better. The Type two helper may lose hope that they deserve to be loved. The Type three achiever may lose hope that they have value. The Type four individualist may lose hope that their life has meaning. [00:06:00] The Type five investigator may lose hope that facts and truth matter, the Type six loyalist may lose hope that others will show up for them.
The type seven enthusiast may lose hope that anything will satisfy them. The Type eight Challenger may lose hope that their actions have an impact. Type ninex peacemaker may lose hope that harmony and reconciliation is possible, . And when one of these types loses that kind of hope, we call it an existential crisis, it's a big fucking deal. It makes it incredibly difficult to get out of bed, let alone work on the next book. So what do we do if we notice we're losing or have lost this essential hope of our type?
First of all. We don't judge ourselves for it. That helps nothing. If you notice that you're judging yourself or others for losing hope, it's time to pause and look into [00:07:00] that. Occasional hopelessness is a normal human experience and nobody really teaches us what to do in an existential crisis of that nature.
A practice I use and when you are free to borrow is that when I catch myself judging someone or myself harshly, I ask, where am I missing the opportunity for compassion here? Now, catch myself is a load-bearing concept here because it's not always easy to catch ourselves in these patterns. I fumble the opportunity more times than not. Okay, so you notice you're losing hope or maybe your stores are already bone dry. You move away from judgment and self recrimination, and then you can ask yourself, where have I attached my hope to a particular outcome? You could spend a week mulling this over and it wouldn't be too much time. You may find lots of places where this has happened.
If you're struggling to spot areas, then you can also ask, where have [00:08:00] I been disappointed by an outcome lately? And that'll get you pretty close to the target.
The idea that hope is only made valid or not, if the outcome is to our liking is reinforced over time, in large part as a result of an individual's privilege. So stick with me here, folks. If you are financially secure, well connected, fairly able bodied and lack the additional barriers presented by things like racism, sexism, transphobia, ageism, fatphobia, immigration status, and so forth.
You are way more likely to end up with outcomes resulting from your efforts that are to your liking. This is a proven fact. So in that way, you may be able to last longer attaching your hope to a particular outcome before you have to find another approach.
Here's the big point I would love for everyone to take away. The [00:09:00] sustainable kind of hope we need is generated independent of outcomes. We don't wait for the conditions to be just right for it to fall into our lap. We simply choose it. Hope is a choice, a courageous fucking choice. You choose to act out of hope, and you do it independent of the situation.
When the desired outcome seems obvious or likely, that's not when we need hope. We need it when any desired outcome seems unlikely, even impossible, and we don't see a path there, that's what hope is for. When the book launch goes better than forecasted, we don't need hope. When the book launch is a massive fucking flop and we're not sure if we'll ever recover, then we need hope.
Do we know how to get our hands on it? I find it useful to audit myself in this way to take an inventory. Am I only practicing the choice of cultivating hope when [00:10:00] it's easy to do so? Because that's not when I really need it. Okay, so concrete example time. Let's say you have a chronic health condition as many of us do already, and everyone who lives long enough will eventually.
If your hope is dependent on waking up the next day and being miraculously cured, your hope will fail you probably within a few days. But if you choose to hope that one day there will be a cure and that others who might have lived with your condition will not have to endure it, now there's fuel that will keep the fire alive.
That hope is not dependent upon a specific outcome in a specific timeframe that hope reaches beyond our own situation and outcomes, connecting us to a shared suffering, and we may feel empowered and inspired to work toward the easing of that suffering. This hope is not dependent on an individual outcome.
Therefore, it cannot be toppled by one. It's fueled by humanity. [00:11:00] Yours and the greater humanity that connects us.
We see this flavor of sustainable hope really play out in the actions of those who lose children to school shootings. Then fight for legislation that will keep suffering from continuing through our shared experience. You see it with people who lose a loved one to a disease with no known cure, but choose to hope that someday it won't happen to other families and put their action behind moving us all closer to that reality.
And you see this in storytellers who write ideas, emotions, and events that connect to universal suffering and may offer some small solace to others. You see it in those authors who struggle to build a business, and rather than seeing it as a castle, they need to defend from invasion. They offer guidance to newer authors to help them avoid the pain they once endured.
You don't need to feel hopeful before you choose hope. You don't need to see a clear [00:12:00] path forward before you choose hope, and you don't need to wait for promising external conditions before you choose hope. If this were the case, our industry, especially indie publishing, wouldn't exist.
This industry was built upon the decision to hope not the ideal conditions for it. I think about my nation's history. All progress for human rights has been made by people who were not facing conditions that stoked, easy, hopeful emotions or thoughts, but those people chose hope anyway. They chose hope so fully that they risked their lives for it often knowing that they would never get to experience the fruits of their decision if those fruits ever even grew.
We all feel moments of hopelessness. There's no shame in that. We will even have times when we know hope is a choice, but we're too tired or downtrodden to make that [00:13:00] choice. That's okay. Just remember that it is there. It's also necessary to surround yourself with people who are making hopeful choices.
This sort of courage spreads from person to person. It inspires. So allow yourself to not only inspire others, but to be inspired by others. Writing a fictional story in times like these is a decision to hope. What you hope for may vary. For me, writing is an act of hope that I'll lighten someone's load and remind them of the gifts that they bring to the world.
It's an act of hope that some iconoclastic idea I stick my neck out to share will make someone who has also had that idea feel less alone and alienated. I don't wait around for verification of these outcomes to continue choosing to act in ways that support them.
So I've obviously tried the approach of sitting down with the hope that the book will make a million dollars and be widely praised, and that outcome [00:14:00] dependent hope can really freeze me up like nothing else. I start making decisions for the story based on what might lead to that star studded outcome.
And guess what? Nobody fucking knows the formula, not me, not the person who just wrote a bestseller, not the publisher who claims to know, or the agent who says they can spot it. Nobody. People get lucky. Sure, and some knowledge is more sound than others. But when we start claiming to predict outcomes with reliability, we only end up proving ourselves wrong.
One way we can support our ability to choose hope is to read stories from authors who are way ahead of their time. Being way ahead of your time requires a lot of courage. They chose to hope that one day the rest of the world would catch up with their vision. Obviously probably wanna forego the Orwell and Huxley books here, at least for this purpose.
, but the author I tend to go to is Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut. But if you're not a satire writer, then you may have someone else to look toward. But find [00:15:00] yourself an author, mentor like this and let yourself cultivate your hope by watering it as you read their writing.
I also find inspiration from reading about early activists. A lot of people aren't aware. Then the early 1930s, Berlin, Germany had an institute dedicated to researching trans health that was almost a century ago, which really debunks the harmful myth that trans people are some new phenomenon of pulp culture that was almost a century ago, which really debunks the harmful myth that trans people are some new phenomenon of pop culture or whatever nonsense the person is arguing to avoid examining their own gender and sexuality. , but of course, because Nazis suck, they burned down the institute in 1933, erasing all the research and knowledge it contained. So this type of attack on the very existence of trans people has been happening for a long time. And it's unfortunately back with vengeance today. And yet, trans people, trans activists and their allies [00:16:00] are choosing hope.
There aren't a lot of ideal historical outcomes to encourage that, but they chose it anyway. I'm not bringing in this example as like inspiration porn for those outside of the trans community. It's just that a lot of times when we've enjoyed some privilege or another that tends us toward higher frequency of desirable outcomes, we end up demanding proof that hope makes some kind of sense before we choose it.
The only sense it needs to make is that if you don't choose it when you can. You'll be lost. So here are some ways that I see authors choose hope. Writing the story that they keep thinking about before bed, even if they don't know how to market it. Sharing both their wins and losses with other authors.
Committing to practices that manage the inner critic. Letting go of cynicism, writing the next book in the series when the last one fell short of sales expectations. Starting a new pen name that aligns with their passions and values. [00:17:00] Taking a break from writing to care for the rest of their responsibilities.
Forming connections with other authors, especially after former author friends, mistreated or betrayed them, engaging in conflict to work toward resolution. Sharing honestly with your audience, asking for help and support. Offering help and support to other authors and not in a self-aggrandizing way.
That's just clearly to show off your own sales, reading the books that shaped their genre, rereading the books that made them want to become a writer, saying no to the demands of others to say yes to their writing time and on and on and on. Not all of these will be what hope looks like for you, but these are examples of where I have seen authors choose hope recently.
I see authors choose hope every day, but they don't necessarily see that that's what they're doing. And it's so important to see that we're already choosing hope and recognizing how much it sustains us. [00:18:00] Where do we get the strength to choose Hope? Sometimes we look back on the choice and can't believe we actually did it. I feel that way sometimes. How the hell did I muster the courage to publish the Jessica Christ series? I didn't see it as hope at the time, but it was, and it was maybe, maybe I was foolish and I didn't realize how much hate I would get for it, but maybe I did and maybe I just chose it anyway.
Maybe I chose to hope that the series might move the broader discussion about sexism disguised as divine right forward, but I didn't require a guarantee of results to keep working at that long seven book project that nearly killed me. Considering how Texas has basically time warped back 50 years on women's rights in the last few years, I'm glad my hope wasn't tied to an outcome.
I'm still glad I wrote those books. Every now and then I get an email from someone who is really glad that I wrote them too, and that's a bonus for sure. [00:19:00] So if you're wondering what, if there's no hope, I'll just say hope is always there to choose. If you're waiting for a guarantee of results to fall right into your lap before you allow yourself to feel hope, yeah, you're screwed.
But that's not how hope really operates. Not the sustainable kind that moves humanity and the individuals within it forward over the long run. You can always choose hope. Maybe you're too tired for it today. I get that. Choose it tomorrow maybe, and if you still don't have the energy. Reach out to people who will lift you up until you do have that energy, that strength.
And if you don't have the energy for that to reach out to people. Well, I'm glad you're here. I'll lift you up. So let's start with a small choice. Teeny, tiny choice, as tiny as you need it to be. Hope can be found in very, very small choices. Drinking a glass of water can be a really hopeful choice. You're investing in [00:20:00] your health, and if you don't have clean drinking water available, try closing your eyes and stretching out your neck and shoulders for a few minutes.
That's a hopeful choice too. Anything that moves you toward a healthier experience, if your body is a hopeful choice, so start small water stretching, breathing into your belly instead of your chest for a few deep breaths. If you're struggling to find hope. To choose it. Just choose to do one of those things right now and ta you're choosing hope.
Do what you can when you can, and ask for help when you need, and that's, that's your part to play. As authors, we get to write characters and worlds that show others what's possible. So maybe that's, you know, in a small way, like your cozy sleuth learning to trust your gut or your ragtag team of misfits coming together for a common cause.
We get to water the hope of others, and in doing so, we are choosing hope for ourselves. [00:21:00] It takes courage. It takes a willingness to occasionally look foolish in the eyes of others, but. Hope is available and we need it like we need food. So what's one small act you can do today that demonstrates hope?
Think of something and then do it. Don't discount the small stuff because the small stuff opens the door to bigger things and the small stuff matters all on its own. So that's it for this episode of What If for Authors, every episode I record and post for free is my choice. To pick hope. I hope that someone listens to these episodes and is spared some pain or feels understood.
I hope our industry can stick around through whatever up appeals come our way. I hope storytellers keep telling stories until the end of time. I. I don't think this podcast will be the deciding factor in those bigger dreams, but I'm happy to know that I'm a voice in the chorus. It generates hope in me, so thank you [00:22:00] for listening, and I hope you'll also join me for the next episode.
Happy writing.