Alternate Plan

Writing is...frustrating. It's especially so when you have huge distractions from everyday life. And like many writers, I bought into the admonishments...write every day...keep writing, even when you don't feel like it...BICHOK (butt in chair, hands of keyboard).

No.

Little is accomplished except my increasing frustration. Time out. Time out, I say! There are only so many directions the mind can go.

Perhaps, once my 'stuff' is back in order, then there will be room in the fuzzy brain for writing. So I'm taking a short sabbatical to organize the rest of my life. I'm giving myself permission to take care of my other obligations without feeling like a failure because I'm not writing.

I admire those writers who can plow on through thick and thin, through the mire of family drama, poor health, and financial emergencies. I can't. And I refuse to feel guilty about that.

Perhaps with all the extra 'contemplation' time, I'll figure out what direction my stories are taking. That would be a good thing to know. In the meantime, they say organization is good for the soul.

anny

Fear of Failure

No one gets up in the morning and thinks, "Today looks like a good day to fail." No one plans to fail. If failure was part of a plan, then it would be a success in the end because it was part of the agenda. So in the end, failure is an unplanned consequence of some action.

From the very beginning of our lives, we learn by failing. Crawling, standing, walking...all of those skills are learned by failing repeatedly until we've mastered them. Parents expect their little ones to fail. No one rushes forward to rescue the kid. It's a normal part of life.

When they're older, they learn other skills with the same fail/succeed ratio. Riding a bike. Dribbling a ball. Making a grilled cheese sandwich. Spelling separate (it has "a rat" in it). Learning to write cursive. Adding and subtracting. But I've noticed that parental willingness to allow children to learn by consequences sharply diminishes as the kid reaches their teens.

I don't advocate allowing them free rein. Our culture and society is based on rules. We're expected to obey basic laws. Don't steal. Don't kill. It's the parents' job to rear their kids with respect for the law.

Some of life issues are a bit more abstract. Working for what you want. Delayed gratification. Getting back up when we fail and trying again. If you give a kid everything they ask for, why would they work for it? If they never have to wait for something, how will they learn to wait?

I propose failure and dealing with the consequences is the way we learn how the world works. The rush to protect children from failure prevents their development of coping mechanisms. Look at it this way--suppose we play checkers with our child and we always let him win. Why would he learn the strategy he needs to know to win on his own?

Instead of being ashamed of failure, we should celebrate every time we get back up and try again. That is the essence of success.

anny

Fear of Success

If you are following the Crazy Blog Serial, today is Amarinda's day at http://amarindajones.blogspot.com. I'm sure that she thought she cornered me, but alas, no, I've devised a wily escape which I will post tomorrow.

In the meantime, I have joined not one but two writing classes. One began day before yesterday. So far we've stated our goals for the next year, formulated a plan to implement those goals, and today we're working on analyzing what exactly is keeping us from implementing our goals. Once we decide that, our assignment directs us to find solutions to those problems.

As I read through the various lists my fellow writers posted, I was struck by the similarity from post to post. The same difficulties were listed. Spouse, children, elders, job, technical distractions such as e-mails and other web based activities. But the number one problem was self-doubt.

Self-doubt is a robber, not just in writing, but in every endeavor in life. That every present thought, "What if I'm not good enough?" keeps us from trying. If you never try, you can't possibly succeed. Ever. Whether you want to go to the moon, walk across the country, become the first woman president, or write a book.

This seems to be a peculiarly female trait. I know very few men who hesitate to do something because of the fear of failure. Why is that? What are we teaching our daughters that leads them to believe that they will fail? Does it all start with our urgent belief that certain things are not lady like or feminine? I don't know.

I do know that when I started asking other women about their dreams and what stopped them from achieving them, the number one reason was that same cry, "Suppose I try it and I suck at it?"

Well, my answer is, "SO WHAT?"

Will life as we know it come to an end? Will the sun fail to rise? Will the sky fall? I think not. Why is spectacular success so important? Why is it so terrible to try and fail? Isn't it worse to reach the end of life and have to say, "I never succeeded because I never tried?"

At fifty seven I finally found the courage to submit my first book. Nothing terrible happened. I was offered a contract. It was released last week. So I have to wonder how much longer I could have been writing and published. Sad, huh?

This is not to say that there aren't authors who have a satchel full of rejections. I have deep abiding admiration for them because they didn't quit. They kept on going. They didn't let fear of failure keep them from their dreams. That's the important thing.

If you don't try, you can't possibly succeed.

Anny