Life Lessons That Still Make Sense - 28 Years Later

So sorry I didn’t post last week! I was at the Authors After Dark conference and my plans to write the blog while I was there never came to pass. I always overestimate how much writing time I’ll have at conference events. It was a wonderful time, though. Many delightful readers and authors in attendance! But without further ado, here we go with this week’s post…

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I didn’t always intend to be a writer. However, in fifth grade, I was certain that’s what I would be. I wrote stories during class, passing chapters to my friends to read. I took writing courses, entered short story contests and wrote a wealth of novellas that have long ago been recycled (be thankful for that – lol). I even entered college as a creative writing major, an impractical decision I’m sure made my parents cringe. Note to all young aspiring authors out there: Choose a major in college that will support your writing habit!

I’m a big believer in major life changes happening for reasons that aren’t always clear to us at first. All during the years I was pursuing my writing dream, I was also very involved in animal welfare/rights causes. During my teen years and early college years, I worked in various capacities for a local humane society. Sometime during my sophomore year, a switch flipped, and my desire to pursue a career in animal welfare surpassed my writing interests. I switched to a business degree and obtained a BA in nonprofit management. For the next eight years or so, I worked in pay or volunteer positions in the animal welfare area. Then, in my late twenties, the writing light flipped back on and has held the upper hand to the present day. During the volunteer portion of my animal rights work, I supported myself as a secretary, which evolved into my “day job” career path for twenty years.

I’m forever grateful for taking that eight year detour, for two reasons. First, because animal rights/welfare is a cause that’s still near and dear to my heart. Second, the life experience I gained during those years was vital to the kind of writer I am now. Working with volunteers in my animal rights capacity or serving as a secretary during my day job put me in an excellent position to study people, and acquiring an intuitive understanding of human behavior became vital to character explorations in my books.

While learning about the art of management in all these capacities, I also internalized basic tenets that not only apply to working with volunteers in a cause-based organization, but also in interacting with publishers, authors, readers, friends, family and anyone else in life. Even more importantly, those tenets helped me do what I do every day when I sit down at the keyboard. Want to know how? These are the five tenets that have provided me the most guidance.

ONE: A personal attack is not personal. Anyone remember Patrick Swayze’s quote from Roadhouse? “If somebody gets in your face and calls you a cocksucker, I want you to be nice. Ask him to walk. Be nice. If he won't walk, walk him. But be nice. If you can't walk him, one of the others will help you, and you'll both be nice. I want you to remember that it's a job. It's nothing personal.” The point being, when Person A does something mean to Person B, no matter how personal it feels to Person B, it has very little to do with Person B. It has to do with Person A. It could be something as simple as their day started out in a crappy way and they’re cranky. Or if their negativity is an ongoing occurrence, then it could stem from deeper insecurities or a sense of helplessness about their own lives that causes them to strike at or drag down others.

When you’re a writer, you have to remain sensitive enough to be receptive to the creative process, but thick-skinned enough to endure a lot of not-so-pleasant stuff in the publishing business. Like mean-spirited reviews or unfair decisions about your work that can be driven by egos, insecurities or simple fear of change. You have to step back from all that, not take it personally, and keep on writing, writing, writing. Not allowing your perseverance to be destroyed by negativity is key!

TWO: Everyone is your customer. Your manager, your co-worker, anyone in your proximity who has a problem you can help solve, a need you can support, or a goal you can help them meet – they’re all your customers. You can probably figure out how that applies to interacting with authors, readers and others in the publishing business, but you may be wondering how it fits with writing. Fictional characters have goals and needs as well, and my job as a writer is to help sculpt out the pathways that get them there in a believable and effective way. If I don’t do a good job for them, I feel it, and I keep working at it until it feels right.

THREE: No matter what the job is, give 110% to it. You never know who’s watching. I’ve had several instances both as an author and as a secretary where the attention and care I paid to my job opened up further opportunities. But giving 110% provides more than better career opportunities. The more initiative, motivation and self-discipline you show toward the task before you, the more personally satisfied you’ll be with the result. Professional and emotional well-being lead to even better things. And giving your all to every job opportunity is a lot like training for a marathon. When you finally find the job that’s your true heart’s desire, you’ll have the discipline and right attitude to apply to it in order to succeed. Writing is hard work!

FOUR: Resist stagnation. No matter our age (though it gets even harder as we get older), stepping outside our comfort zone and learning new ways of doing things is something we often resist. We must always be ready to adapt and grow, and this is never so true as in publishing, where the business seems to be changing daily, for both marketing strategies and publishing platforms. But it’s also true for the writing itself. The next book can ALWAYS be better, and to make that happen, I listen carefully to feedback, and am always seeking ways to improve my craft. Even after 46 books! Maybe especially after 46 books, because it’s far too easy for an established writer to fall into lazy habits that result in formulaic and redundant storylines.

FIVE: Never lose sight of the kind of person you want to be. There’s a great saying from the movie Cool Runnings, and it’s very timely right now with the Olympics: “A gold medal is a wonderful thing, but if you're not enough without it, you'll never be enough with it.” The decision to dedicate my primary energy to writing did not happen without a lot of soul searching at different turning points in my life. First, letting it take priority over my animal welfare/rights pursuits was a very difficult decision, since writing is of course a more self-serving pursuit than a social justice cause. I felt like I’d accomplished what I’d intended with my animal welfare work and I wasn’t abandoning it entirely, and the muse was being VERY insistent about me returning to writing. Though all of those things pointed to it being the correct decision, it was a good decade before I didn’t suffer regular bouts of guilt over it.

Second, pursuing a full time writing career requires a great deal of time and energy, and relationships and other opportunities often suffer as a result. There are many ways I wish I could be/have been a better wife, friend, daughter, sister, neighbor…but I’ve often made conscious decisions that prioritized the writing over those efforts. I thank the people who love me for understanding, and am VERY grateful for the bonds they’ve kept with me despite my shortcomings. However, I’ve had to accept the loss of many good friends along the way who needed more from the relationship than I could give.

Third, when it comes to choosing who you want to be, there’s the writing itself to consider. I often refer to myself as a midlist author, which essentially means a person who earns a decent living as a writer but isn’t a big huge name you see regularly on the lists. I earn enough to pay my bills (grin) and, if ever I don’t, I’ll go back to being a secretary. While nothing is guaranteed in this business, there are paths and storylines I could have pursued that would have been more marketable, or could ride the coattails of current trends, but that was never the type of writer I wanted to be. I wanted to write the kind of stories a reader would want on their keeper shelf – the kind of story I would want on MY keeper shelf. If I can look back and feel like every story I wrote was a 110% effort to be that, then I am satisfied that I am the kind of writer I aspired to be—with or without the gold medal.