success

5 Ways to Support Your Creativity

Lynette M Burrows

The weight of political divisions, racial injustice, gender or ability discrimination, and natural disasters can be overwhelming. Particularly in 2020. Choose your meme, but many express dismay about the ongoing issues. And many creatives feel the impact of these important issues in a way that diminishes their creativity. Do you have a creative support network? Maybe it needs some reinforcement. Here are 5 ways to support your creativity with a support network. Supportive Peeps Mentors You need mentors. People who are more advanced in their craft, who can share their experiences. Mentors come in many forms. They can be one-on-one in person, but they can also be teachers in your creative classes, a memoir, or in how-to books. You may find a mentor in your genre related creative organization. SFWA (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America) has one such program. Peers Peers who understand problems, frustration, and successes are vital. They be in person or classmates, critique partners, co-authors, or online friends. You can use twitter chat, forums, zoom, and writer groups online or on your favorite social media site. Make certain you choose peers who give more positive interactions than negative. And that you dish out more positive […]

Your Grade at the End of the Day

Lynette M Burrows

We’ve all had those days when no matter how hard you try, you can’t seem to get anything done. If you had to grade your success that day, what would you think? What would be your grade at the end of the day? Never Enough  Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right. -Henry Ford Some days, particularly during the pandemic, you simply don’t have enough hours in the day to get everything done. You’re exhausted and frustrated and defeated. It’s too much. If you had to grade your performance, your grade at the end of the day would be a failing one. Sound familiar? Step back a moment. Let’s rethink that. Perfect or Victim Perhaps you’ve fallen victim to the perfect trap. Having high standards, lofty goals, and always wanting to do your best are splendid things. They can help you become and do the best you can. But perfectionism is a two-edge sword: a desire to do well and fear of the consequences of not doing well. According to Psychology Today, critical perfectionism manifests itself as inwardly focused perfectionists and outwardly focused perfectionists. Inwardly focused perfectionist beat themselves up for every mistake or failure. Outwardly focused perfectionists bully […]

What Flavor of Success Do You Want

Lynette M Burrows

Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines success as “favorable or desired outcome.” That’s like trying to eat a large designer cake in one bite. There are as many interpretations of that as there are people on the planet. And there are traps within personal definitions of success—traps where you give the responsibility away to others. As a result, it’s hard to pin down what success means to you. If you don’t define success for yourself in a realistic way, you may inadvertently say no to success. Think of success in simpler terms. What flavor of success do you want? What does it look like? How do you measure success? Is success a book published, a book sold, a certain number of books sold, a certain amount of money earned? All the usual definitions may leave you unsatisfied. Why? Because most of those things are not in your control. What You Can’t Control You can’t control readers Not how many you get nor how they respond to your book. Even when you do mega-research on your genre, you have no control over a single reader.  You can’t control sales. Certain marketing maneuvers will increase the possibility of sales, but you cannot control the number of sales […]