All hail the wisdom of Kristen Lamb, social media expert. I absolutely
loved reading her book (check out my review)and I love reading and learning from her blog, so much
so that I am going to share one of her posts from this week that resonated with
me.
In Enemies of the Art Part 4- Pride, Kristen writes:
Humility
will take us farther faster. When we’re humble, we’re open to mentors, to
learning new things, to trying other ways. I see a lot
of writers who rush out to publish before they are ready instead of listening
to the 42 people who told them the book wasn’t yet marketable and needed work.
Personally I have struggled
with pride (or rather a lack of humility) in my life only because I also
suffered from a near debilitating fear of failure. I have only recently learning
how to ask for help when I need it instead of doing everything myself and messing it up. In this new to me world of writing it is
more beneficial for me to wrap my pride in a cloth, put it in a bag, vacuum the
air out of the bag and then toss it into the back of my closet.
Check out the rest of what Kristen Lamb has to say
about the combination of pride and writing on her blog.
Any thoughts on this pride issue? Does it serve a place in a writer's life? I'd love to hear what you think.
Any thoughts on this pride issue? Does it serve a place in a writer's life? I'd love to hear what you think.
Oh yes, pride. Sigh. That insane need we have to compare ourselves to everyone else. How in the world do THEY win contests/get published/make sales when they're [fill in the blanks] and I'm not.
ReplyDeleteI think we need to have enough pride to believe in our work and send it out. But we need to learn, as early as possible, that we can't do everything for ourselves, and the idea of asking for help so we can help in return can become pretty darned positive.
Thanks for sharing Mona (the one who introduced me to to Kristen Lamb), you are absolutely correct.
ReplyDelete