Tag: Rejection

Why Every Writer Should Think Like A Scientist

On By Robert EvenhouseIn Writing TipsLeave a comment

If you’re a writer you’ve been a failure. No matter if you’re a New York Times Best-Selling Author or just starting out you wrote an article, short story, book or blog post, and it was rejected or not excepted by your audience.

It’s easy to feel like a failure. I know I have.  No matter if it’s merely a blog post that got poor traffic, feeling rejected can be crushing. I know several writers that have given up because of it.

If you’re a writer who has given up or you are feeling a mountain of discouragement on your back because of constant rejection, I’d like to propose a change of mind to you.

You are not a writer, blogger, essayist, or novelist. You are in fact a scientist. Let me explain.

Microscopic

We are experimenting. We are doing our best to tell stories and introduce ideas to see how they will be received.

There is a famous quote by Thomas Eddison ( this is the best source I could find) where he says he did not fail to invent a lightbulb 10,000 times, he found 10,000 ways light bulbs didn’t work. Failure taught Eddison to innovate, to try different methods.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your take, there is no manual to writing. You can’t follow X Y Z and produce a great book. You can have mentors and guidelines but you must figure it out on your own.

So if you are discouraged, work backwards, reverse engineer your story. Ask friends what went wrong, remove parts, see what your can do to make it move faster, tighten up the grammar.

If you do this it can be a healthy way to separate yourself from your work to lessen the blow on each rejection. It can also help make writing fun again and ignite the thrill of the chase.

Who knows were you might end up if you simply persevere?

Do You Give One Bad Day Too Much Importance?

On By Robert EvenhouseIn The Writing Life1 Comment

If you keep a blog in hopes to use it as a platform to grow your chances at publication, then you know the power of one day. In one day, you can be dancing about as the views and traffic explode. In another day, you can curl up in a ball on your bed as a handful of people stop in to see something that took hours to write.

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Photo Credit: cesarastudillo via Compfight cc

I work in sales and the power of one day can be a hard thing to shake. Too good and arrogance and his friend complacency start to creep in. Too bad? You know your family will live under a bridge some point soon.

These two scenarios could happen. But the likelihood is probably zero. Why? Because one day does not define a blog, a career, or a relationship. One day has no more power than any other day.

Here is when I thought about inserting some Gandalfain quote about what to do with time that is given to you, but since we aren’t storming Mount Doom, I thought I’d lend this thought.

We must stay focus on our yearly goals. That is what matters.

If you have one bad day in sales, there is a chance to make it up the next day. One bad blog can be easily forgotten if we hit our goal on the next post. The important moment here is what we do next, no mater the outcome of each day. Do we stop? Or do we keep going knowing we are in ____ for the long haul.

I don’t know about you but I have a lot of work to do, miles to traverse, and rejection letters to battle through before I reach my goals.

Have you ever given one day too much weight? What happened as a result?