Blogger: Janet Kobobel Grant
Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
I’ve found when dealing with long-term stress that the best posture for me to take is one of hopefulness and optimism but not unrealistic. In other words, it’s a waste of energy to just wish the situation would go away, or that the tooth fairy can solve your problem. But you need to believe it can be solved and to feel optimistic that it will be.
I recently saw a television program that was so scattered in the theme I can’t even remember what it was, but certain aspects of it were fascinating–and memorable. One segment told of a Vietnam War POW who, during eight years of imprisonment and torture, mentally created plans for building his family’s dream home. He didn’t just work on the big ideas of how many rooms, but he figured out how many nails were needed, how many bricks, etc. Then he would decide to move a room to a different part of the house, which would affect the rest of the design and keep his mental gymnastics going.
His preoccupation with the minute details kept his mind off of his present, horrific, and seemingly endless situation. The house plans also kept him hopeful, optimistic that he would live to build that house, but not unrealistic, thinking he would be freed tomorrow. The good news in his story is that eventually he did build his dream house, and he gave the camera crew a tour through it, explaining that he probably decided on lots of windows and open space because he dreamed up the house when he was in a small cell with no windows.
How does that translate to the writing life? It takes that hopeful, optimistic but not unrealistic stance to stay strong through the stresses of each phase of a writing career. Before you’re published, it’s the optimism that keeps you going, but the reality is that publishers have relatively few slots for an overwhelming number of writers. When you’ve gotten a few books under your belt, your challenge is to remain hopeful and optimistic as you observe that your publisher is leaving the building of your readership mostly up to you. Then, when you breakout from the pack of other writers, and your star starts to shine, you’re not lacking friends or colleagues who all have ideas about how you can help them. Meanwhile, you need to find ways to remain hopeful and optimistic that your good run is going to continue, but realistic enough to realize you need to make good choices for that to be the case.
In what other ways have you dealt with the stresses of publishing by finding hope and optimism while remaining realistic?
Realism is seeing the flaws in your current manuscript. Hope is having the courage to rewrite. Many times.
Sue Harrison
I love this quote from Shakespeare:
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
I think the same can be said about hope.
This is one of the (many) things I appreciate about the Books & Such team. You’ve looked on tempests and not been shaken.
I think for me, what’s important is the source of that optimism. My optimism can fade like mist in the desert when hard times come, but true hope comes from a deeper place.
For Christian writers, hope must come from believing in the goodness of God’s intentions toward us, come hell or high water. It’s hard to get to that place of trust in our lives. But that kind of hope is what inspires dauntless optimism like what you describe.
That, or just having a perky, perpetually optimistic personality. I’ve met some of these wonderments of humanity in the wild, but, sadly, I’m not one of them 😀
This is an excellent post, thank you.
Sue, thanks for putting the thoughts in this post into writerly terms. You’ve captured the hopeful reality for a writer well.
Kelli, it’s so true that our ultimate hope should be placed in the One who holds the outcome in His hand.
My husband and I watched the musical Carousel the other night, and I’ve been humming “Walk on” ever since. Knowing we’ll “never walk alone through the wind and the rain” makes such a difference.
Yes!
I also find resilience in my critique group–other writers whose work I respect tremendously, who remind me of my own strengths as a writer when I seem to have forgotten them myself. There are those who will squash you down, and those people are to be avoided; this business does enough squashing on its own. And there are those who will uplift you when you need it, and offer realistic praise and hope. They are a very important part of my writing life.
Bless that soldier; I hope he goes on living in his dream home for the rest of his life. Thank you, Janet, for sharing the story.
What a wonderful post! Very encouraging.
I tend to be very goal oriented, so if the process gets long, it’s easy to feel discouraged–as if delay in reaching the goal is equal to failure. What helps me is to remember that God is often more interested in the process than the product. It’s not that He doesn’t want me to finish and finish well, but He also has things to teach me as I work toward that end. The process is in no way time wasted.
Thanks for this post, Janet. It’s really a matter of focus isn’t it? If we focus on all that is or could be wrong and insurmountable we’ll be stymied and immobilized. But when we focus on what is true, noble and right (Phil. 4:8)we are given the courage to go on. When I get discouraged as a writer I re-read some of the letters and emails readers have sent, telling me how their lives changed because God used something I wrote. Then my focus moves to the role God has given me and I move on.
Blessings, Marcia