kristaphillips THE WINS
I actually posted this (automatically) this morning, and deleted it when I got up this morning because I didn’t like it.
I LOVE celebrating wins. Including my own. The writing profession is riddled with rejection upon rejection, and let’s face it. We all need a little encouragement now and again! Agent Rachelle Gardner posted about this the other day on her blog.
We, after all, are humans. As much as we *say* that God’s opinions are what matter and we are content with serving him with no rewards…. we all need a little boost.
So I’m deciding now, after prayerfully considering this today, that my post wasn’t as self-seeking as I’d originally feared. You see, I wrote this in light of the postive and the negatives, and had just broken off the positives into the group just like I did the negatives. But when I woke up this morning it occured to me that all YOU, as my bloggers, would see was me bragging on myself.
YUCK. Please, I REALLY REALLY don’t want to be one of those, “Look at me because I’m SO SO awesome” kind of people. (if you are reading this and thinking, OH NO! That’s ME! Trust me, it’s not. Not ONE person whom I know of that reads my blog falls into this catagory.)
So, below is my original post… but I’d like to add a discussion question: How do YOU tell people about your wins? And do you struggle with feeling prideful when doing so? How can we share our good news with others without making it seem like we are full of ourselves?
***original post***
I’m a big believer that it’s helpful to know both what we are doing well and where we need improvement.
And both are just as important as the other! If we know our strengths, we can grab hold of that and gain confidence. It also helps when we are critiquing others, and we know where to use our “learning” time more effectively.
Yesterday we talked about scores, and I created a fun spreadsheet for myself that helped me analyze them and gave me averages so I could know where I needed to focus more efforts. (I’m a math geek, I know!)
My strengths came out to be the following areas:
• Grammar, spelling, and punctuation. (Waiving to my crit group that helped me on this!)
• The story holding interest until the end.
• POV
• Pacing, or the flow of the story.
• Fresh, original writing, avoiding clichés
• Author voice being distinct
• Dialogue
This is based on averaging the scores of all THREE of my books, and is anything that averaged a 4 and above. POV and Grammar ranked the highest at an average of 4.86.
Some of my favorite comments from all three books that made me almost cry with relief included:
• You had me hooked from the beginning!
• This will be a great book!
• The likeable characters and facility with dialogue are the strengths.
• Your writing has a nice commercial appeal.
• The author can obviously write well, the story idea is terrific!
Now, please don’t think I have this huge head now, because there were some equally as critical comments that require a lot of attention and rewrites, but it seemed the overall consensus, baring a few exceptions, was that the framework of the stories was good, and that my writing cuts the mustard. The last part was my greatest concern and relief. I’ve worked really hard over the last few years to “learn” the craft of writing and to know that I’m getting there exciting!
TOMORROW, you will hear about all the things I DON’T do so very well! And believe me, there were PLENTY!
Discussion: It’s BRAG on yourself Thursday people! We don’t get this opportunity very often, because usually it makes us look full of ourselves, but TODAY I want you to be EXCITED about the gift God has given you and share with us your WINS. If you entered the Genesis, what GOOD things did judges have to say? What area’s are you doing well in? If you didn’t, I want to here some positive things that God has been doing for you/with you lately!
What awesome comments! That must have cushioned whatever negatives you got, because those are certainly great strengths.
I haven’t gotten a whole lot of critiques on my WIP, but I’ve been told it has an engaging plot. ??? We’ll see if I can sustain it! LOL
Hmmm, well in one manuscript that finaled, a published author gushed all over it. That felt pretty good. LOL
Then another manuscript that usually does pretty bad because people don’t like my heroine got a good comment. The judges said she’d buy it if it were in a store. See, I memorize the good comments! LOL
About good writing stuff…I don’t feel bad being excited in front of non-writers, but sometimes with writers I temper things down because I don’t want to make anyone feel bad.
But I believe it’s okay for you to gush about your comments. 🙂 We all know how subjective they are and that to get some comments like you did is pretty awesome!
There’s nothing wrong with “bragging” about the good the judges said about your entries. As long as you’re not lording it over everyone an talking about how great you are (and I know you wouldn’t). Those of us that follow your blog want to be able to share in your happiness, so “brag” away!