The Reason We Fail

I fail a lot. Before 8am. Every day. I have failed at everything from diets to relationships and every dang thing in between. I've missed work, missed parent teacher events, and I nearly fell over attempting to stand still (but gosh those high heel boots looked good even though I couldn't walk or stand in them). You've failed too, right? Didn't win that writing contest? Didn't sell as many book copies as you'd planned? It's only mid-January and you gave up on your resolution or New Year goal?

This is a hot topic at our house. We have teens and tweens mixed with toddlers, and of course adults. We make a lot of mistakes, and we talk about how we can do better. We are a noisy group and most of us enjoy a loud conversation and we don't go to bed until we are satisfied. We also ask "WHY?" a lot...like "why did you do that?" "why didn't you do that?" "why are you treating your sister that way?" "why do you think your coach did that?" etc...

My son recently made a poor choice with a coach for a team sport he participates in. He felt like a failure. In the situation, he definitely failed to make good choices, yet he is an 11 year old boy and is in no way a failure.

Why did he fail? Why do I fail? Why do you fail?

Here's why:

You are going to fail. I am going to fail. It's not the fault of anyone except us. In my son's case, it's not his coaches fault by any means. We sometimes set our expectations too high. We don't always put in as much work as we should have. There's no magic pill going to make me thin and there's no guarantee the book you're working on is going to be on the top ten list. Every day is not going to be a win. Here's what we need to remember about failing:

We have a choice of failing. (period) or failing forward. It's ok to be upset and disappointed. It's okay to cry. We just have to put on our big girl (or big boy panties) and make the changes necessary to move forward. As for help when necessary. Evaluate the steps that led us here and do things differently next time around. Human nature leads us to blame someone instead of taking personal responsibility - but it's not your spouses fault, it doesn't matter that you went to XYZ college, and if we are talking about losing weight - there's no magic pill. When I eat the garbage and don't exercise I can't expect to lose the weight. The Oreo cookie is not to blame - my lack of willpower IS!

You are standing in your own way. I'm standing in my own way. I need to keep that mirror close by as a reminder. What are ways you've failed forward? How do you remind yourself to keep plugging away? What works for you?

Crystal is the office manager, council secretary, financial secretary, and musician at her church, birth mother, Auntie, babywearing mama, business owner, active journaler, writer and blogger, Blog Tour Manager with WOW! Women on Writing, Press Corp teammate for the DairyGirl Network, Unicorn Mom Ambassador, as well as a dairy farmer. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband and their five youngest children, two dogs, four little piggies, a handful of cats and kittens, horses Darlin' and Joker, and over 250 Holsteins.

You can find Crystal milking cows, riding horses, and riding unicorns (not at the same time), taking the ordinary and giving it a little extra (making it extraordinary), blogging and reviewing books here, and at her personal blog - Crystal is dedicated to turning life's lemons into lemonade and she has never (not once) been accused of being normal!

Read More »

4 comments fail, failing forward, life fail, moving forward, no blame, the reason we fail, why we fail

Editing or Publishing?

Which is more difficult, editing or publishing?

Hmmmm....not sure how to choose between the two. That's like asking if someone wants cream or coffee. They go hand in hand, right?

Sometimes both processes can be overwhelming. Is the rejection of publishing more difficult than re-writing and re-organizing with editing? I think both processes can make us feel a bit broken. A bit off our game. As I was pondering this last evening, I read a lovely line from Ann Voskamp's Be the Gift :

You are the most loved, 

not when you're pretending 

to have it all together; 

you are actually the most loved 

when you feel broken and 

falling apart.

Isn't that great to see in print? Especially this time of year? Especially when you're writing and re-writing, editing and re-editing? Especially when you are querying and facing what seems like an ocean full of rejection with no life vest in sight?

Some solid advice whenever we feel we are falling apart, whether it be editing, publishing, surviving the holidays, muddling through parenthood is this:

1) STOP - take a deep breath and feel the love around you.

2) ASSESS - sit down (with a cup of coffee preferably) and look at the situation as objectively as possible. If you're a list maker, make a list of everything that needs to be done.

3) FOCUS - focus on the goal at hand. If you're editing, remember the reason you started writing and focus on the fact your book will be available for purchase someday. If you are querying for a publisher, remember each no gets you closer to a yes which brings you closer to the best seller list!

4) MOMENTUM - keep your momentum going by putting one foot in front of the other. Before long you'll be moving more quickly and the end goal will be within arm's reach.

5) CELEBRATE - this is the part where you look at where you were during step one and reward yourself and those around you for making it this far!

Here in the Otto house, we are in the first week of Advent and it's a busy time as a church organist, mother, wife, and friend. I often feel a bit frazzled and disconnected. It's been incredibly helpful to sit down each morning and walk through these steps. Some days, the list helps me move through the mountain of laundry without cussing under my breath. Some days, it's just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other and celebrating at the end of the day by crawling under the covers and vowing I'll smile a bit more tomorrow. Other times, it's writing and re-writing the same sentence and eventually removing it completely only to put it back in the very next day.

What do you find most difficult right now? What advice would you give to others as far as moving forward? What did you learn from editing or publishing? Which did you enjoy more?

Please leave your thoughts and ideas - WE LOVE to hear from you!

Hugs,
~Crystal

Crystal is a council secretary and musician at her church, birth mother, babywearing cloth diapering mama (aka crunchy mama), business owner, active journaler, writer and blogger, Blog Tour Manager with WOW! Women on Writing, Publicist with Dream of Things Publishing, Press Corp teammate for the DairyGirl Network, Unicorn Mom Ambassador, as well as a dairy farmer. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband, five young children (Carmen 10, Andre 9, Breccan 4, Delphine 2, and baby Eudora, two dogs, four little piggies, a handful of cats and kittens, and over 230 Holsteins.

You can find Crystal riding unicorns, taking the ordinary and giving it a little extra (making it extraordinary), blogging and reviewing books, baby carriers, cloth diapers, and all sorts of other stuff here, and at her personal blog - Crystal is dedicated to turning life's lemons into lemonade!

Read More »

4 comments advent, ann voskamp, be the gift, editing, moving forward, Publishing, writing, writing mom

To Plow or to Edit?

This depicts literal plowing. I am,
of course, referring to a figurative,
writing-type plowing.

I’ve heard two schools of thought when it comes to writing. There are those who believe, most ardently, that authors should write without editing until the manuscript is complete. On the other hand, there are fervent proponents for editing as you go.

I spoke to a fellow writer years ago, and he felt that it’s much better to finish your work in progress first, without stopping.  The editing, re-reading, and adding on to each scene came later, in his opinion. He believed that a writer loses sight of their story when they stop to edit as they write. In his opinion, finishing the work is the most important goal, and exerting editing effort on a first draft is a waste of time.

Another writer friend says she cannot move forward with a scene when it is choppy and unedited. Knowing that a scene isn’t strong bothers her and makes her less productive. In her opinion, even first drafts should have some literary merit.

I tried both of these approaches over a six day period to decide for myself.

For the first three days, I didn’t edit my work. Not even once. I pushed forward, doing my best to stay focused. I wrote. I wrote a LOT. In three days, I managed to add about a two-thousand words a day, which is very productive for me.

Still on a production high, I entered the next three days with enthusiasm. This time, I stopped after every page and re-read my work, making changes, adding details and rewriting sentences. I was lucky if I finished five-hundred words a day during this period, but I certainly had a strong sense of my characters and plot.

While it may sound like writing without stopping was the better choice, I found that revising as I went was the more satisfying experience. Even though I was productive when I wrote without stopping, I felt less content with my product. At the end of each day, I was left with a feeling of unease, hyper-aware that what I had composed was, for lack of a better word, uneven. On days where I took the time to revise, I felt complete. When I started writing the next day, I was able to look back on the previous day’s work with a sense of fulfillment.

For me, slow, steady, and meticulous was the way to go. I do see how finishing your work quickly can bring a sense of gratification, but paying attention to detail helped me create a more effective story.

So what do you think, lovely readers? Plow through, or pay attention to detail? I’d love to hear your thoughts!


Bethany Masone Harar is an author, teacher, and blogger, who does her best to turn reluctant readers into voracious, book-reading nerds. Check out her blog here.

Read More »

6 comments attention to detail, drafts, editing, Harar, manuscript, moving forward, productivity, WIP, work in progress, writing, writing gratification

Advice for Writers: Keep Moving Forward

This statement, "Keep moving forward," has been appearing a lot in my life lately, and I think it's the perfect topic for a Monday morning inspirational post. After being completely stressed out in October, I finally had a meltdown of epic proportions about the craziness and busy-ness of my life; my friend said to me, "Just keep moving forward. You can't do anything about the past. But every day, you can take a step forward to where you want to be in your life."

How did he get so smart?

But he's right, and this is true for all of us--whether you're talking about your personal, professional, or writing life. You have to take a step every day to move toward where you want to be. Looking behind too long keeps you stuck.

Last weekend, I was lucky enough to serve as a mentor for the ShowMe Writers Masterclass Conference in Columbia, MO at the University of Missouri, and one of the speakers was Chuck Sambuchino from Writer's Digest. I've heard him speak before, and he is very engaging. Don't miss an opportunity to learn from him if you get the chance. Anyway, he was enlightening the audience about 10 ways to be a professional writer. He started his speech by acknowledging that there were so many things beyond our control as writers; and therefore, we have to focus on the things we can control, such as the quality of our writing and our brand/platform.

Then one of his points was also--you guessed it--"Keep moving forward." Take a rejection, for example; a rejection is beyond your control as long as you did your best job and followed the directions. You can keep moving forward by sending it to someone else, or if it's received several rejections, looking objectively at the piece and revising it. You aren't stuck. You aren't putting the manuscript in a drawer and refusing to write. You are moving forward because you sent it back out.

As I wrote last time, my YA book is out of print. But I am moving forward by planning to self-publish it, hopefully sooner rather than later.

I also heard Jay Asher, a YA author of Thirteen Reasons Why (soon to be a Netflix series), speak at a library in St. Charles at the end of October. He has a new book out, What Light, and this is his first book on his own after all the success he had with Thirteen Reasons Why ten years before. He talked about how difficult it was to write another book after all the success of the first one, but he kept moving forward. He said he works on a few projects at a time, so that if he gets stuck on one, he can switch to another. That might not work for some people, but it does for him--because he is moving forward on the projects instead of being stuck in writer's block.

So, how do you move forward in your writing career? If you are stuck, what could you do to get unstuck?

Margo L. Dill is a writer, published children's author, editor, and teacher, living in St. Louis, MO. To find out more, please visit http://www.margoldill.com. 

photo above by Josh James on Flickr.com 

Read More »

2 comments Inspiration, Margo L. Dill, moving forward, rejection, revision