Posts Tagged ‘positivity’

Lesson Learned: Being Positive Comes Back to You

Posted on: by Jeremiah Tolbert

I’ve been doing my best to be a pos­i­tive per­son in my writ­ing for this blog since I restarted it last week.  Those of you who know me per­son­ally know that I can be quite cyn­i­cal and pes­simistic, but this is some­thing about myself that I’ve been try­ing to change.  It’s not that I think there’s any­thing wrong with being cyn­i­cal, but hon­estly, I’ve got­ten really tired of it.  Maintaining all that cyn­i­cism can take effort.  So with this blog, and with other aspects of my life, I’ve tried to focus on the good side of things.

When I write encour­ag­ing blog posts like I have lately, the audi­ence is myself as much as it is you.  When I tell you that per­se­ver­ance pays off or that your work is worth cel­e­brat­ing just for exist­ing, I’m writ­ing to con­vince myself of that just as much as any­one else.

Twitter response has been great to such posts, and I tweeted not long ago that it seemed like at any given time, there’s some­one out there who could use your words of encour­age­ment.  It was a real­iza­tion that shocked me.  In my own self-​​centeredness, I’ve spent more time think­ing about how I could cheer myself up, than how I could cheer oth­ers up.  And so now, when I write encour­ag­ing words, I try to think about that per­son out there, the anony­mous reader, who needs it even more than I do. 

Something’s work­ing.  For one, I finally fin­ished a story this week that I’ve been ham­mer­ing away on for the month of September.  For another, I had a look at the traf­fic and feed sub­scriber num­bers for this blog, and in the past two weeks, my audi­ence size has dou­bled.  I have to con­clude from that that you like what I have to say lately, and I should keep at it.  And I will, I think.  What started as a forced exer­cise is more and more becom­ing who I am now.

It’s strange to real­ize how much we change by acci­dent, through sheer chance.  When you set out a plan and go after it and work hard to make some basic change, and it works—that I under­stand.  But when it hap­pens on its own, as a byprod­uct of some­thing else… it’s sur­pris­ing, in a delight­ful way.

Write a Complimentary Note to a Writer or Editor Day

Posted on: by Jeremiah Tolbert

I am declar­ing today one of those non-​​holiday hol­i­day days.  You must all put this day in your cal­en­dar, and spread the word far and wide.

We all con­sume a tremen­dous amount of media these days, whether it be books, tv, mag­a­zines, or blogs.  But how often do we really express our grat­i­tude and appre­ci­a­tion to the cre­ators of these things?

I’ve long tried to make a point of writ­ing notes to writ­ers in my own field when I read a piece of work that I really enjoy.  I know how great it feels to receive such notes.  When you don’t make a lot of money in your cre­ative pur­suits, the appre­ci­a­tion from other human beings can really make it all worthwhile.

So, I declare today “Write a Complimentary Note to a Writer or Editor” Day.  Has some­one done a won­der­ful job with a story, or putting together an issue of a zine?  Tell them.  You’ll feel good, they will feel good, and a lit­tle more hap­pi­ness in these dark times can only be a good thing.

So how often should “Write a Complimentary Note to a Writer or Editor” day come about?  I’m think­ing weekly…  Hey, it’s not like Administrative Assistant Appreciation Day where you have to buy gifts.  This is just a few min­utes of your time to dig up an e-​​mail address and send a mes­sage to it.

The peo­ples of the inter­nets are so quick to say when we don’t like some­thing.  Let’s try to bal­ance that out a lit­tle bit.  Who’s with me?

Kristine Kathryn Rusch on Staying Positive

Posted on: by Jeremiah Tolbert

I need to take a short break from writ­ing blog posts today so that I can fin­ish up my new busi­ness web­site and get things rolling on it.  Instead, today, I offer you this link from Rusch:

Remaining pos­i­tive sounds like such a minor thing. Yet it is the key to every­thing. Oddly enough, suc­cess­ful free­lancers are the most cyn­i­cal, hard-​​bitten opti­mists in the entire world.

We have to be. Who would believe in us if we didn’t believe in ourselves?

No one dis­cusses remain­ing pos­i­tive at a day job, unless it is a require­ment of that day job. When I worked as a wait­ress, I had to smile at the cus­tomers and be nice. It was in the job descrip­tion. The same rules applied, per­haps more strin­gently, at my very first retail job. We had to be so incred­i­bly nice at that store that we were required (again, as part of the job descrip­tion) to wish each and every cus­tomer a very nice day.

It’s a great post, and I highly rec­om­mend you head over and read it.