That writer drove a beat-up car with a muffler held on with duct tape... after the movie came out.
Bet you thought I'd say he drove that beat-up car, then sold the rights to his wonderful book which became Rambo and then drove around L.A. in his new Mercedes.
I can't tell you how much I wish the story went like that. There is a happy ending here, but it's not going to be about money. The happy ending here is that a fantastic writer wrote a phenomenal book and although everyone else in this crazy world became filthy rich from his story, the writer went on to write more books.
How do you define success?
John Locke's book, "How I Sold a Million E-Books in 5 Months" is a great place to look for how he defines success (and his heart-rending story of failure after failure after failure). What stood out for me the most in the book was how John named each of his books and set sales goals for each book. He applauded the success of each and monitored them as if they were his employees - how did Rachel do this month? Thanks, Jill, your success just bought my groceries! John Locke defined his goals and found a way to measure the success of each book. He did not measure his own self-worth or success by how many (or how few) books he sold or how much money he sank into a pursuit that initially was a moneypit. Like the world famous writer above who used duct tape to hold his car together, so he could keep moving, John Locke, used everything he had to keep things moving forward.
Find a way to hold your dream together and success will follow.
Somewhere in your life, there's someone who believes in you. We don't have cheerleaders like the character Gary in the Pokemon series. That would be nice! You'll find people who are willing to read your blog, willing to read your crappy first drafts and willing to show up to your book readings just to say hi. You'll find a few people who are willing to pay 99 cents for your book and tell others that it was a fun read.
Why does negative influence from the trolls, griefers, and gripers have so much power online?
There's a famous social media saying, "Don't feed the trolls." Trolls are the negative folks who spend their days alerting the world to how much you suck. The best way to handle trolls is to ignore them. However, there is another famous saying in social media, "everything online stays online forever." So, without feeding the trolls, by default the trolls' hard work stays permanently in place with your social media.
Over time, your fans and influencers will step up and override the trolls, but dealing with the negative influence will not help you on your path to success. Let all that go. When someone finally steps forward and says, "hey, leave her alone, she's a nice person working hard," give that person a LOT of your attention and if you can, help them in turn!
Success comes to those who pick up the pieces time after time. Success comes to those who never give up. Success comes to those who keep writing when their first books don't sell and frankly stink. You are the success of all your failures, triumphs and efforts. Your success is a shadow of all your smiles, frowns, tears, late nights, early mornings, missed meetings, showing up time after time and shaking hands with a few good people over the years.
Influence is coming out from the shadow of success and telling everyone that you're who you are today because of a roll of duct tape, a book from a guy who names his books and sets sales goals, a high school teacher whose daughter wrote and said you were a nice girl, a teacher who hated your writing, a teacher who loved your writing and a teacher who said "if you don't cry when you write, you can't write poetry." Influence is taking all those stories and wrapping them around you like a fur cape and then flinging back the cape and confidently telling the world to gather around: it's time to tell a story.
It's YOUR time! Make a wish and tell your story!
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