Artistry With Words

Happy Thursday to you all!  The blessed weekend is almost upon us, and then it will be time to kick back and say goodbye to writing for two days.  Bev is deserting me for the weekend, the temps are supposed to be in the nineties, and I have a to-do list to attack.  I suspect I’ll be more than ready to write on Monday.

Today I believe we will talk about……fear and rejection.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”

Plato

GUEST BLOGGER OF THE DAY

I would like you to say hello to a writer friend of mine who graciously accepted my invitation to guest blog.  Say hello to Zainab Tarawali.   You can find his blog here and I encourage you to do so.

Fear and Rejection: My Two New Pals

I’ve been writing since I was a child – from silly short stories to intimate journals on life’s lessons. It wasn’t until a few months ago that I finally mustered up the courage to make a business out of my writing. I would say that I put all doubt and fear to the side but that’s not exactly what happened.

Like many folks, I dreaded fear for the longest. If a situation arose that lead to adversity, fear would always find its way in and I couldn’t stand it. Plus I hated myself for reacting to fear and letting it affect me. I would let it cripple me and sometimes even stop me in my tracks. Then it got to a point when I decided to fight back. Fight back the thoughts, the naysayers and the horrible effects it had on me. Fighting worked at first, but that stopped working after a while.

Then there’s lovely rejection. We’ve all experienced that more than once and it’s never pleasant. Situations that left me rejected would just leave a nasty scar on my mind and heart. So I took the same steps I took towards dealing with fear, I decided to avoid any situation that would lead to rejection as best as I could. Yeah, that didn’t last long either. Plus I got tired of missing out on things.

When I realized that I needed to take my writing seriously and make moves, fear and rejection made their way to my mind, but after dealing with them so much over the years and learning that fighting them wasn’t working, I reached a conclusion. I shouldn’t dread or avoid either one. They are a part of life and I wasn’t abnormal for feeling fear; it’s a natural emotion. Rejection was a part of life and I could learn from it and not hold onto painful memories. These two could really take me places! Case in point, after experiencing fear and rejection career wise, I was able to face both and use them as motivators – the end result was a huge promotion doing something that I love. I’m applying this same type of energy to my writing and I couldn’t be more excited.

So I look at fear and rejection and say to both of them: I thank you for everything you’ve taught me and given me over the years. You guys are not setbacks, stumbling blocks, or delays. You are motivators and fire starters! Thanks for giving me the courage to write my first pitch letters to editors and to even serve as a guest blogger on a great website. Thanks guys!

AND THAT’S IT FOR THIS WEEK

Thanks again to Musu for taking the time to do my work for me this week.  I hope you all follow his blog, and I wish all of you a wonderful weekend of rest and relaxation.  Oh, and if you should want to read my new novel, Resurrecting Tobias, you can find it on Amazon or my website at www.williamdhollandauthor.com.

Bill

“Helping writers to spread their wings and fly.”