I’m a Loser, Baby, So Why Don’t You Kill Me?
by Leesa Dean
Ok. A lot to write about so I’m holding off writing about Rollo till next week cause this is more important. I got a fairly big response to last week’s post about developing a thick skin. A few people actually wrote in saying how they were scared to move forward with projects for a lot of the reasons I addressed.
Coincidentally, a few days ago TVWriter, a great site that has TONS of resources/articles/competitions for people interested in writing for TV (and yes, they’ve been a huge supporter of Chilltown), had a link to an article in Inc. magazine that addressed another aspect of it: the very real fear of failure, especially when you’re starting out and things are rough and you are, in fact, failing. One of the things that really hit home for me was identifying so much with your work, any rejection or failure is a rejection of you personally.
I had to get over that. Quickly. I’ve been extremely fortunate to have had some minor success (so far) as a creative. But I’ve had WAY more rejection. Everybody goes through it. It’s tough to take. And it’s way worse when you look at rejection as a personal indictment. That all you are is your work and if your work is rejected, you’re nothing. With all the rejection you go through as a creative person, believe me, taking things that personally is a one way ticket to Bellevue where the only plus is you’ll be too depressed to complain about the lousy hospital food.