…this bit, from THIS AMERICAN LIFE’s Ira Glass should be it:
Found on the interwebs by LB,who hopes this answers a question he’s always being asked. I.e., “Why does your contest Feedback always tell me to keep writing as much as possible and gain experience? How will experience help someone as uninformed as I am get me over the hump?”
Nope, we aren’t talking about giving criticism here. We’re talking about getting it? Here’s what we mean:
by Tara Sophia MohrIt’s happened to all of us: feedback on our creative work has, at one time or another, caused us to get stuck. Maybe a client hated your designs, and your confidence was shaken for the months that followed. Or a client hated your designs, and you wasted hours arguing with them in your head. Or maybe it’s the quieter criticism of no response at all—to blog posts or a new offering in your business—that has you feeling demoralized.
All of these are ways we get “hooked” by criticism – caught by it in ways that limit us. What we want instead, of course, is to be able to hear and incorporate useful feedback, without the personal wounding or creative blocks that so often come with it.
Distractions. We writers all have them, right?
Well, of course other people have them as well, but we’re on TVWriter™ after all so we’re going to stick with writers.
Want to be a writer? Are you writing? What’s that? Speak up!
No, wait, don’t talk at all. Dammit, write!!!
by Meredith AllardEarlier this year I wrote about making changes. First, I wrote a post called Wherever You Go, Go With All Your Heart about how I had decided to become a PhD student after dreaming about it for many years. Then I wrote Hello, Goodbye: Changes Are Good for the Soul. And I still wasn’t finished making changes.
Time now for the most depressing news since the last most depressing news. An informal poll of TVWriter™ minions – and our Most Beneficent Boss, Larry Brody – confirms that the following article about entrepreneurs also applies to writers (and probably everybody else in showbiz, for that matter). Not for the faint of heart:
When you win the Super Bowl, in life or in business, you cannot ever win again if you do not immediately go back to training — you must stay hungry, win or lose, success or failure. Whether the Panthers or the Broncos win the Super Bowl this year if they stop training they will never win another Super Bowl. Success requires constant attention and the moment you stop hunting for it, it will escape you. You must approach the creation of success as a must-have obligation, do-or-die mission, gotta-have-it, hungry-dog-on-the-back-of-a-meat-truck mentality.
Let your customers know you are hungry. Don’t act like you don’t need their business. There is an old saying that tells people to “fake it ’til you make it.” Well, this doesn’t apply here! Instead, you want to “act hungry to make sure you don’t end up hungry.”