In Life, How Do You Trust The Process?

There comes a time when life gets hard. You always ask yourself, ” When will things get better?” Lately, this has been my question with everything going on. I love to keep it real on my blog. I do not think of it as telling my business or putting myself out there. In a way I am putting myself out there, but that is because I am giving you me. My reality is not a great one right now. Still on the search for a job has become very daunting and stressful. I have not thought about  suicide, but I will say the rejection does get to me. Tonight, I listened to an interview by DeVon Franklin and he talked about his new book called ” The Ten Hollywood Commandments” and I LOVED the interview. It spoke to me in a way where I know that in my heart everything will be fine. Last year I did a service in AmeriCorps and my program manager told me to ” trust the process” and I would roll my eyes. In turn, I had no clue what it mean and how it applied to my life. Out of ignorance, I will say that I did not appreciate the program until now that I am out of it. Watching the interview, DeVon said, ” You can’t wear the crown until you have held it.” At first I did not understand what he was talking about until he said, ” you have to go through the process of serving until you make it to the top and then once you do, you still serve.” Lying in my bed, I was like, ” Oh shit!” What we go through is only temporary until the better opportunity presents itself.

It brought me back to when I was in a training for AmeriCorps and my program manager said to trust the process. Always be willing to serve and do your best. Now that I think about it, my mindset was horrible. I was horrible with my thinking that I was better or the position was ” beneath me.” Then I heard DeVon say, ” When you are at the bottom, what is beneath you?” The statement resonated with me so much. I was so on my high-horse when I was in fact at the bottom and should have been happy to serve. My friend and other person who was in the program serving and he is employed at that very place today. I was not offered a position even though I did my job. It’s funny how life will make you take a nice big slice of humble pie. Thinking back this other person was eager and happy to learn. He trusted the process and made it work for him where as I complained about the pay, the education and how the service was beneath me.  The good thing is I can ALWAYS learn from my mistakes and approach things differently. I am not a promoter for DeVon Franklin, but I really enjoyed his book, ” The Wait” and when I am able to I will purchase his new book. I chose to take his word and trust the process with my writing, a job and even life.

Can Rejections Ruin Your Confidence As A Writer?

This Is Deep…

As a writer, it is hard for others to see your work the way that you do. I mean, how many no’s can we take? J. K. Rowling took a one too many no’s before she got her yes. I tweeted Angie Thomas, ( author of The Hate You Give) and she gave me some sound advice. She said, ” All you need is that one yes.” But, it seems with the more rejections we get as a writer, the less excited we feel that our yes will come. With writing, can the rejections ruin our confidence?

Okay…

Growing up as children we all hated the word NO. So, it is only right that as an adult we still do not like the word, especially when it comes to something we think is so perfect like our writing. I will be honest, in my lifetime, I have given up on my writing abilities three times due to rejection. There was one time I was querying agents for a book and I did not understand why I was getting rejected. Once, I did my research the correct way and not listened to what other writers were telling me, I realized why. My stories were not aligned with the correct word count.

Once I realized my wrong doing, I self-published all of my books. For a while, the ,money was great, but after a while, the money stops. Then I felt like I had exhausted all possibilities to make money from this way. The more writing I was doing, the more I felt that I had to re-invent myself in some way. Now, I have a completed book that I want to be published the traditional route. The process of getting an agent is tough, but it will be worth it once I get my yes. This experience is damping my spirits just a bit, but I am not going to give up. I said to myself, ” My stories are not good and I am throwing in the towel.” Then, I had someone inbox me via social media and asked me when was my next book coming out. The message that the young lady sent me was HOPE. In that moment, I realized that I could not writing or telling stories. They were in me and it is my duty to share it with the world. Never give up, keep the confidence and the faith. You are a writer.