“You must want it enough. Enough to take all the rejections, enough to pay the price of disappointment and discouragement while you are learning. Like any other artist, you must learn your craft, then you can add all the genius you like.” – Phyllis Whitney
“In Boot Camp, tough sergeants deliberately try to break the morale of inducted men. Those who break, they send back to civilian life, or to some more or less ignominious chore in army life. There are two or three hundred thousand ‘writers’ who ‘write at’ writing in this country. 90% of them make next to nothing. The few who do get by are those who were not “broken” in the Boot Camp of their own wills, or lack of same.” – Jack Woodford
Rejection, disappointment and poverty is nothing new to a writer. It is just a stage they need to cross to reach the other side – Success. I wrote this blog to teach myself that I will not take rejection as a personal insult.
The problem is my critics don’t come from outside. I am my biggest critic. I sneer at my stories, jeer at my ideas and scoff at my language. And, as I am honing my skills, it is getting harder to please myself.
As I sadly sat pondering about this, suddenly, it just struck me. We call God - the creator. He is the highest force of creative energy who has created this entire universe and all the creatures in it. But none of this is perfect.
Every man has physical faults, mental faults and spiritual faults. The sea water is too salty, the river water is too scarce and the rains are always too low or too harsh for crops to grow. Cows have two horns, roses have thorns, eyes need glasses and bones can be broken.
If the greatest of creators, the Lord, can make so many mistakes then what can be said about we poor mortal souls?
So, I should learn to allow myself to make mistakes and forgive myself when I make them. If I can criticise the Lord’s work then all are permitted to criticise my work too and I should learn not to hate them for it.
No comments:
Post a Comment