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Uncovering Your
Strengths
By Lorna Tedder
Remember Job from the Bible? He's always held a special place in my heart. You see, Job lost everything, all
except his integrity. In the end, God gave him back many times the things he'd lost.
The story of Job makes a great lesson from the pulpit, but
I've always wondered how he could be satisfied with getting back mere multiples of what he'd lost,
especially when he'd lost his children. Yet, Job somehow managed to rebuild his life and come out stronger and more blessed
for all the pain he'd endured.
Sometimes we as writers have to rebuild, too. I'm not talking about having to
reinvent yourself to keep from going stale. I'm talking about having to start from
scratch. After years of effort, sometimes years of being on top, we're catapulted
into disaster and find ourselves staring at the remnants of a writing career.
It could be that our publisher folds, leaving us with contracted but not yet
published books. Or maybe the line that's buying five books a year from us vanishes,
leaving us high and dry without a steady market. Or maybe our chief talent is writing angels or
futuristics, just before the market's bottom drops out. Or maybe our new editor thinks "crap" isn't a strong enough word to describe
our scribblings. Or maybe it's just the Devil testing us. In any case, hitting rock bottom and having to rebuild a
career definitely qualifies as a traumatic event. But before we rebuild successfully, we have to look at
healing ourselves.
To be mentally healthy, we need to strike a careful balance between
self-confidence and self-doubt, and we all know that writers tend to be a bit heavy on the
self-doubt even before a career catastrophe strikes. Extremely self-confident people are often arrogant,
shallow. They don't examine their doubts and weaknesses. They don't grow.
But when disaster does strike, then we must examine ourselves to get beyond
the damage. Unfortunately, when we start to examine ourselves, we pick ourselves apart,
list our deficiencies, decide that it's all our fault. We find our careers going nowhere suddenly and we blame
ourselves. Our self-esteem takes a hit. Our self-doubt takes over.
The abrupt change in our careers is the initial "wounding,"
to borrow a psychological term. It rocks the foundation of our belief in ourselves and leaves
us feeling vulnerable, powerless, and unworthy. We may cling to our writer friends for comfort and assurance that we really can write,
that it's just a matter of time, that any editor who doesn't like our work is a dope, that the market's so
very tight. We're needy and not just emotionally. We're not selling, so there's no
money coming in and the kids need braces, the landlord needs the rent, and the husband starts hinting
that we should take on a waitressing job to make ends meet.
As much as we need other people right now, we also want to withdraw from
everyone, both writers and non-writer friends and family. We want to hide our self-doubt, our frustration. We want to crawl into a dark
hole and make it all go away.
And at the same time, we may be very angry, justifiably so. After all, we've been
self-sufficient and suddenly we're assaulted emotionally, maybe professionally and
financially. How dare the market change! How dare that publisher go belly-up! How dare that beloved editor
betray us by deciding to stay home with her newborn triplets! How dare anything happen to destroy our
self-sufficiency and take away our control!
As if what we do ourselves isn't bad enough, we have to endure "secondary"
woundings, and sometimes these woundings are even tougher to get beyond. Strangers and
non-writers are often unknowingly cruel. They don't mean to remind us of all we've lost when they ask for seemingly
the 100th week in a row when our next book is coming out and we're forced to mumble something about
well, maybe in a year. Or worse. When did you sell? they want to know. Then they point out another writer who's sold
10 books to your measly 1. Oh, yeah. As if we'd missed that somehow.
Family members and friends should know better, but too often they make it
worse. It's that subtle, "Gee, honey, do you realize you haven't sold anything in 2
years?" They don't realize that "You're spending that much on a conference? Well, are any of the editors there actually
going to buy something of yours this time?" can be interpreted as "You're spending the babies' college fund
on some worthless dream and therefore you're a bad mother."
When are you going to sell again? Why won't that editor buy your stuff? Why
can't you just write cowboys, brides, and babies if it'll sell? So find another line/publisher to
write for. Such simple questions. Yet they bring back the flood of "what's wrong with me/why me/how could I have
let this happen?" Strangers and friends wound us in several ways, and we need to be aware of
these. Published authors who hit the skids don't get a lot of sympathy from the unpublished. "Well," they say, "at least
YOU got published." It's called "discounting," and it says that our pain isn't that important. It's like the cellist who
lost several fingers in a bus accident. She was told to stop crying about it and
acting like a baby because other passengers were dead and missing arms and legs and
she'd only lost a few fingertips. No big deal. She'd lost nothing more than a dream.
Not only are we blaming ourselves, but we're also getting
lots of help from other people. You were writing vampires and now no one will touch a vampire
manuscript? Well! Why didn't you do a better job of researching the market
and know vampires were dying? You got orphaned and now your biggest advocate in the publishing house is
baking cookies for her kiddies while you prove yourself to a new editor? Couldn't you talk her into staying? If
you'd been a more prolific writer, she might've been promoted and stayed.... You haven't sold in a
while? What's wrong with you? Yeah, as if we needed help blaming ourselves!
Then there's the stigma that wounds us as well. The multi-published author who
finds herself starting over is a has-been. No one wants to hang around with a has-been.
The authors like me who put out one book and then disappear are one-trick-ponies. Nobody wants to hang
around with a writer who "isn't serious," "obviously isn't professional," or "isn't good enough" for a repeat
performance.
To understand and combat these secondary woundings, let's look at why they
happen. Most people who hurt us just don't understand because they haven't lived it. It's
very hard for a rising star author to understand, especially one who puts out 3 or 4 best-sellers before her editor
stomps all over her with a rejection she didn't see coming. (If, heaven forbid, she's been mouthy about her success,
she's a prime target for a little secondary wounding from the rest of us!)
But seriously, if you go back and re-read the story of Job,
you'll see some startling similarities here. There's a philosophy out there that says you get what's
coming to you. If you'd been better, if you'd been smarter, if you'd been competent, you could have avoided this trauma. So
somehow, people who suffer do so because they've done something wrong, stupid, impure, immoral.
Bad fortune happened because of something in their personality or past, and not because they lacked control over a bad
situation.
Our culture also believes that if we work hard, we can overcome anything. The
publisher went bankrupt? Silly us! We'll just start our own publishing company. And when we can't, we're seen as weak, ineffective.
Now that we know the types of secondary wounding and why strangers and
friends wound us, we can start to overcome it. We identify the wounding, we distance
ourselves from it. We may still be bothered by the comments, but by naming the devil, we can harness him
so he can't destroy us. And because we can recognize the woundings and their cause, we're less likely to believe
those stupid assumptions of blame that reinforce our self-blame. The negative feelings--humiliation, rejection,
guilt--are a mirror of the other person's ignorance and not of us. They're blaming the victim.
Another way we can respond is by developing our own "self-talk." I guess I need
a spin doctor. I'm still working on this one and I never seem to be able to find
one fantastic sound-bite that I can remember without getting flustered. You know,
a smart come-back to when my next book is coming out or why it's taking so long.
Something positive that says I'm a worthy writer at the same time I cut off any more comments that I really don't
want to hear. This self-talk is something we all need to develop. Besides answering the questions about why
we're stalled out at the moment, it also affirms our worth and improves our control over
the situation.
So now that we know how to get the noise of secondary woundings out of the
way, let's look back at the initial wounding and how we can start to heal and move on.
To heal, we have to grieve. We grieve for lost time, lost
chances, for manuscripts that won't see the light of day in this decade or until the marketing
pendulum swings back our way. We must resolve our grief so we can get on with pursuing our dreams and rebuilding our careers.
First we have to identify our loss. Once we know what we've lost, we can make plans to compensate or adjust to prevent
more losses of this type. Did we forget to study the market and simply didn't see that angel books were fading
while we left that precious manuscript with an agent who hates paranormal?
Okay, we missed the trend. That's the loss. Maybe the manuscript can be
published in a slightly different format in another 5 years. Now we know to watch
the market more carefully, pick our agents more carefully, take more control over
this aspect of our career, and get those big, happy contemporaries out of the closet before that trend
fades, too! Now, make a list of your losses. For the past year, the past five years, or
whatever. I'll list mine as an example. My losses in one particular year, which I've
deemed the worst of my life, include the following:
 | I lost my beloved grandfather, and along with him, the freedom to roam around his farm and his old house. |
| I lost my garden (a special place for me) in Hurricane Erin. |
| I lost the beautiful dunes where I used to go for solitude when Hurricane Opal flattened my town. |
| I lost my best friend. |
| I lost a lot of sleep worrying about my Government job
during all the furloughs. |
| I lost my health temporarily when I injured my back on
the job. As a result, I lost out on promotions because no one thought I'd be back at
my job. I lost money to get medical care. I lost my sex life to the back numbness, I lost
my creativity to the painkillers, and I lost my sense of humor to the pain. I
lost time from work and several plum assignments. I physically wasn't able to write. |
| I lost my family pet of 13 years. |
| I lost respect for a supervisor who tried to force
me to do something illegal and didn't back me up when I refused. |
| I lost respect for the judicial system. |
| I lost my editor and had to start all over with a new
editor who wasn't excited by the types of stories I sent her, so I stopped submitting. |
All in all, a wicked year. But I have to look back now
and say, "Wow!" Those were all hard losses but I got through them. Some of them still hurt--a lot--but I'm
grieving lost loved ones and healing slowly. But you know what? When I realize the magnitude of losses I sustained in one
year alone and that I'm still standing (!) I start to realize how strong I am.
How could I have endured such loss and not have what it takes to rebuild a
career? Look at your losses. Look what you've held up against. Make a list. See? You ARE
a strong person. You can come through this trauma, too, just as you've come through all those other losses.
Remember that the five stages of grief are Denial, Anger,
Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. Once we work our way through our trauma to the
point of acceptance, that doesn't mean we LIKE what happened. It just means that we're no longer fighting ourselves and the reality of
seeing our careers stall. We can start to do something about it.
The final step is to see that our trauma actually empowers
us. Those losses I asked you to list strengthened you rather than weakening you. They've helped
you to grow spiritually and they've made you what you will be tomorrow. They give you the strength to take control of
your life and they push you harder than ever before to achieve your writing career dreams.
Take that knowledge of your inner strength, look at all your positives--all the
things you're good at--and start formulating that plan to rebuild. Pull yourself out
of the mire and start looking objectively at your career and yourself. You'll be
surprised, I think, at how much you've got going for you.
Focus on the positives, the new opportunities. How many authors reading this
would never have spread their wings with single titles if they'd not stagnated in
category? How many would never have tried something different if the same-old same-old had sold the next book? How many
wouldn't have found the Goddess of All Editors if you hadn't been orphaned? Growing pains, yes, but all part of
the writer you will become.
It's the old story about one door closing and another opening. Me, I like to believe it's all part of a larger plan.
If I'd sold several more books to the same publisher, I wouldn't have tried non-fiction, newsletter publication,
romantic comedy, single-title, and most certainly not mainstream thrillers. I'm a much
better-rounded writer now, much more focused on where I'm going, and I'm poised to get there.
So watch out, Job. That second shot at a writing career is
going to be a lot bigger than the first!
© 1998 by Lorna Tedder, an excerpt from Reclaiming the Magic: A Writer's Guide to Success
Dr. Lorna Tedder is an award-winning, best-selling author who
routinely shares her writing and marketing expertise at national writers' conferences, online, and
through her writing guides. Her non-fiction guides for writers include BOOK PROMOTION FOR THE
SHAMELESS, BOOK PROMOTION SAVVY, and RECLAIMING THE MAGIC: A WRITER'S GUIDE TO SUCCESS. All three books
are available at www.SpilledCandy.com.
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