How do you define success in terms of writing? When you finish a writing assignment and call it good? When you are evaluated in a positive way by a reader? When you are published? When the writing goes smoothly, painlessly, even though no one else has ever read what you’ve written?
It's interesting to encounter this question in this class since my cross country team was also recently discussing it. I don't think I've ever really defined success in writing, as I've never attached goals to it (other than performance in a writing class.) This has made my writing process remarkably stress-free, as I can't fail if I have no goal, but it's also meant that I have little motivation to write a lot of the time.
Nevertheless, I enjoy it when I write something I like to read. If anything, my standard for success, to the degree it exists, is simply whether I consider my own writing good. The complete subjectivity (and biased judge) probably wouldn't be the best for someone with real aspirations in the writing world, but since I don't have those it works for me.
Looking at this answer, I'm also struck by how similar it is to my response in the running context. Perhaps this says something about me as a person, that I have the tendency to make snap judgments about myself and take them as gospel. It likely isn't the most healthy way to define success, but it feels like something engrained in who I am. Perhaps I need to set more goals and work towards them, but the prospect of failing objectively rather than just in my own eyes is rather daunting.
Success is such an ephemeral thing anyways, with each successive win being overshadowed by the next big thing—does it matter if I define it with numbers or words or just with an intangible feeling? I don't think it does for my writing life, at least; I'm content not to be read or published, and the way I do things now has worked so far. If my personality and my priorities change drastically, perhaps I'll take another look at it. But for now, I'm happy to delete my work if I hate it and look back on it fondly every once in a while if I don't.
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