Wednesday, April 06, 2011

Rock Bottom and the Growth it brings

Hitting rock bottom sucks. Whether it’s with your job, your marriage, your family, or your writing. Rock bottom in writing can be the rejection letter that is one too many. It can be the editor who doesn’t connect with your work and tells you to quit writing. Or it can be something as simple yet as destructive as writer block.

All of these things have happened to me, made me question my skill, desire and dreams. As many of you probably know, rock bottom isn’t very comfortable. It hurts in so many ways. But when I was in one of my pits, a good friend gave me the best piece of advice.

“The good thing about Rock bottom, is there’s only one way to go and that’s up.”

As a writer it’s easy to get in a funk, harder to get out. My advice? Get a cheering section, people who can give you the pep talk be they friends, family or maybe a writing group like I have

Rock bottom is not fun, but it can also be the driving force behind a new idea, an inspiration or perhaps just the desire to prove that you can do it. Believe in yourself and you’ll see rock bottom in a whole other light. You’ll see that it’s there to burnish off the rough edges of your personality, to get rid of the excess in your life and ultimately will make you a better person and a better writer.

What advice do you have for those that are feeling rocks on their posteriors right now?

4 comments:

Niomi said...

Just a thought... and perhaps you've already had this idea... but what about a book about your experiences as a farrier? I'm sure you have many humorous stories worth telling....

Mandy said...

Rock bottom is good solid ground, and a dead end street is just a place to turn around. ~Buddy Buie and J.R. Cobb, "Rock Bottom" (song)

From: http://www.quotegarden.com/adversity.html

As you say, rock bottom is not a comfortble place to be, but it's when we are most uncomfortable that we are most inclined to change our situation for the better.

wordpill said...

Any editor that tells you to quit writing is not worth their salt - it's an abuse of power. My guess is they are not much of an editor. It is the equivalent of a teacher telling a child to drop out of school.

Shannon said...

I totally agree about the editor. The unfortunate part about writers is that we are like children and don't know what we don't know. I think a lot of people get blown out of this business because of over zealous "proffessionals".