One of the greatest disappointment challenges we face as writers is that of self-esteem. If your great story is rejected, criticized or questioned, it can eat away at your sense of self worth until you conclude you’re a bad person. It’s important that you love the one you’re with: YOU! You’re with you more than anyone on the planet…yes even Aunt Bessie who follows you into the bathroom. You have to guard your beliefs so that rejection doesn’t equal bad person. It’s a common malady but there are things you can do to help. Here are what I consider the top five: Hold a pity party! No, you didn’t misread that. For 11 minutes and 43 seconds, party hearty. Mumble and grumble about how unfair life is and how disappointed […]
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Dealing With Disappointment, Part One: Ouch! That Hurts!
Many of you recently attended the ACFW annual conference in Dallas. Those who did pinned hopes on getting some sort of exciting news or opportunity. MBT Voices overall received overwhelmingly positive news. So why am I writing this? Because with the sweet comes the bitter. I’ve dealt with and helped people through disappointment for decades. There are some things I’ve seen in the circumstance that contributes to the emotion of disappointment that I want to share. Having Unrealistic Expectations. Truly there are novice novelists who go to their first conference expecting that the biggest publishers in the industry will stand in line to snatch up their masterpiece…that hasn’t quite been finished. Ok, it really hasn’t been written yet, but with a contract in hand, they could stay up late one […]
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Building Your Tribe, Part 3: Brick and Mortar Not Required
Hopefully by now you understand why you need a tribe. I trust you’ve made the decision to begin building one, or to grow the one you already have. But there is one little gnat buzzing around in the back of your head. It’s the time thing… Again. You say you don’t have time to devote to constructing a successful tribe. You schedule tweets and update Facebook. You sit and wait because you know you’ll soon have to respond or retweet. After all, tribal dynamics require reciprocation. Right? It’s NOT about the thing. Or the task, or the 2×4’s. It’s about the members. You know, those people who just love you and want the best for you? Tribes are relationships, not a hard hat zone with a fence around it. Building […]
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Building Your Tribe, Part Two: What’s in it For You?
I get it. You’ve already got so much on your plate, it’s rolling off and onto the floor. The last thing you need is another task to do in your already jam packed day, right? Well, yeah! But tribes aren’t a burden. They’re the ones who come behind you and clean up all that stuff that just fell off your plate and splattered onto the kitchen tile. If you’re thinking of your tribe as another task, let me encourage you to change your mindset. Think Native Americans. Not those who lived in cabins and homes in the Smoky Mountains, but those who lived in teepees and wandered around the plains of the Midwest in search of buffalo. They were never without help. They banded together. When one was weak, others […]
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