I was listening to a podcast today and the guest (a very successful career writer in the literary genre) said something interesting.
I’m paraphrasing her.
She said that there are a lot of writers in the world with talent. Sometimes they waste their talent. Sometimes they don’t realize they have talent and self-destruct, or do things that squander their gift. Sometimes they make bad life decisions. Or they’re just impatient or can’t handle rejection and uncertainty.
She gave a simple equation. Talent + endurability = success.
Not everyone has talent, but you can work on it. As Dean Wesley Smith says, talent is just a measure of a writer’s skill at a point in time.
Anyway, the writer continued with an explanation of endurability. Endurability is more than resilience. It’s the ability to keep going even though others tell you that your work isn’t good; it’s the ability to keep walking in the dark and leading without followers.
“As long as there is a gift and the ability to endure, you have a winning formula.”
I’m paraphrasing her, but I believe the quote below is mostly right (I typed it as I was listening so forgive me): endurability is about “good habits, patience, discipline, ability to shrug off rejection, the ability to not be self-destructive, the ability to not get in one’s own way, to make good lifestyle choices, to not become a drug addict or an alcoholic…to persist and to honor one’s gift, and to understand that to have a gift is a precious thing, and to nurture it, give it the time and space that it needs, and not give into the demands of the rest of the world, which does not exist to nurture your gift.”
Wow. I’ll just leave that there for you to digest.
Otherwise, today was a pretty good day. Quiet and low key. Started making some headway on my taxes. I don’t want to end up in January and hating my life. 🙂
Recorded this week’s episode of the Writer’s Journey, which is about my next challenge, which I’ll unveil here tomorrow.
As a reminder, you can grab my Beast Mode Collection that contains ALL of my Beast Mode books. It’s $34.99 on Kobo and Google Play. No Amazon, Apple, or anywhere else other than my site. You can also get an additional 10% off if you buy from my site using the code TRUEFAN2020.
https://authorlevelup.combeastmode
AND, BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND, if you buy the Beast Mode Collection through my site, you’ll automatically be entered into a drawing where two (2) lucky people will win a FREE 30-min consultation session with me, where you can ask me anything on your mind and pick my brain about something.
Offer ends Nov 14 at 11:59PM…
Have a good night, everyone.
