Be Positive and Proactive to Silence Author Doubt

By Guest Beth Vogt 

Doubt is part of an author’s journey. 

Any and every author, obscure or famous, struggles with believing they are good enough. That they’ve got what it takes to be a success, however they define success.

And there are hundreds of ways to define success.

But that, friends, is another blog post. (I believe I’ve already written one on this topic.)

There are lots of different ways to deal with doubt. Some well-known authors drink or do drugs. *cough* Hemingway … Faulkner … Poe … *cough*

Not recommending that.

Some authors look to their reviews to bolster their flagging ego. But what do you do with the less than positive reviews?

Other authors just ride the mental merry-go-round and go ‘round and ‘round, up and down, between doubt and confidence.

I’d like to suggest that being positive and proactive is one of the best ways to silence doubt. I’m not talking about reciting “I know my worth” self-affirmations. Although, if that helps you, please continue.

One way to step away from the writer’s search for significance is to stop thinking about yourself. Focus on another author instead. Go from woe-is-me to Yay-you by doing these simple things:

1.     Share another author’s social media post about their book. We all know authors would rather be writing than marketing. But we also know writers need to market. Help another writer expand their social media reach by retweeting a tweet or sharing an Instagram post. 

2.     Share a quote from their book on your Instagram feed or story. No, you don’t need to be a full-fledged bookstagrammer with a bio and candles and props to do this. Keep it simple. Use a Picmonkey or Canva template and type up a quote. Or take a photo of the book’s cover and again, using a graphic design tool, add a book quote – maybe the first line? – to the photo. TIP: Asked to read a book for endorsement? This is a great time to write down quotes to use later.

3.     Celebrate an author-friend’s book on its release day. We all love birthdays, right? It’s also fun to celebrate book birthdays, the day a book launches. Again, you can do something as simple as saying, “Happy Book Birthday!” on an author’s Facebook page. I’ve made a graphic that I post on authors-friends pages when they have a book birthday. 

When you’re busy helping out other authors, it encourages them and it also cheers you up, too. Remember, when in doubt, help another author out.

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Beth has graciously offered to give away one copy of one of the books from her Thatcher Sisters Series! Winner's choice of which book (U.S. residents only, please). Let us know in the comments if you'd like to be entered.

Check out Beth's new release from Tyndale!

How can you choose what is right for you when your decision will break the heart of someone you love?

Having abandoned her childhood dream years ago, Johanna Thatcher knows what she wants from life. Discovering that her fiancé was cheating on her only convinces Johanna it’s best to maintain control and protect her heart.

Despite years of distance and friction, Johanna and her sisters, Jillian and Payton, have moved from a truce toward a fragile friendship. But then Johanna reveals she has the one thing Jillian wants most and may never have—and Johanna doesn’t want it. As Johanna wrestles with a choice that will change her life and her relationships with her sisters forever, the cracks in Jillian’s marriage and faith deepen. Through it all, the Thatcher sisters must decide once and for all what it means to be family.

AUTHOR BIO: 

Beth K. Vogt believes God’s best often waits behind the doors marked “Never.” Having authored nine contemporary romance novels and novellas, The Best We’ve Been, the final book in Beth’s Thatcher Sisters Series with Tyndale House Publishers, releasers May 2020. Other books in the women’s fiction series include Things I Never Told You, which won the 2019 AWSA Award for Contemporary Novel of the Year, and Moments We Forget. Beth is a 2016 Christy Award winner, a 2016 ACFW Carol Award winner, and a 2015 RITA® finalist. An established magazine writer and former editor of the leadership magazine for MOPS International, Beth blogs for Learn How to Write a Novel and The Write Conversation and also enjoys speaking to writers group and mentoring other writers. Visit Beth at bethvogt.com.

The Rules of Positivity

 by Seeker Ruth Logan Herne

We interrupt this program to do a wonderful and quite shameless promotion, friends! 
ON SHELVES NOW!!!  This is my 27th Love Inspired book and I'm so excited to see it released! Available at Walmarts, Krogers, Winn Dixie and pretty much anywhere that stocks mass market books. The Walmart price rocks! And I've got a copy to give away today, so leave a comment below... let's talk the powers of positive thinking!

We now return you to our regularly scheduled program:

Another January!

Before you ask yourself how we got here, let me say two things: Happy New Year, Peeps!

And... What's your plan, Stan?

I was working on a project the other day and one of the questions was this: How Do You Stay Positive?

Now I'm an optimist with a realist's mindset, so for me, the stinkin' glass is half full because if it isn't, I'm going to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to fill that stupid glass. So there's that. :)

But, everyone gets smacked down. Everyone takes direct hits. Every single one of us is surrounded by a divisiveness in our land the likes of which I've never seen before, and every one of us has a personal life that may be filled with problems, worries, angst, aggravation and woe.

How does one rally around that?

Start with the one thing you can control. You.

You are the only controllable variable in your power. You control what you see, think, do, say, and how you react to given situations. So how do you change you?

By forming new habits.

1. Make being kind a habit. Push yourself to do it. Go out of your comfort zone to do it. Make it a priority.

2. Smile. It costs you nothing and your smile might be someone else's ticket to a better day. Smile bright and smile often. Our face is a direct reflection of our inner selves. If you think it's cute to be grumpy and gruff, well, go for it.

It's not, by the way, and pretty soon folks will steer clear of you or shy away. If that's your goal, well... mission accomplished! But if you want to adopt the rules of positive thinking, turn that frown upside down. Everyone loves the Grinch once he turns nice.... and everyone cheers for Scrooge once he has a change of heart. There are reasons for that, darlings. No one wants to hang with a Grumposaurus, the newest species of First World Countries dinosaur. They are draining and taxing and are best to be avoided.

3. Think good thoughts! We are reminded to do this in Philippians 4:8, a beautiful verse that is our power against negative social media or news media, and this reminder is better than having money in the bank:

"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things."


This is a powerful message, friends. Clear your heads of the chaos and the clutter. Find the quiet center of existence in a crowd-craze run amok and focus on the good. The gentle. The kindliness.


4. Adopt the poem "My Symphony" as your guide:

This beautiful edition is on my shelf:

5. Avoid conflict.
This is not always easy. That's why it's a directive. This doesn't mean you need to become a shrinking Violet, it simply means don't argue.
Why?
Well, first of all, (and this should have a SHOCKER!!!! alert) you're not always right.
I know. I know.
I'm going to give you a minute to digest that.
Every now and again you are wrong or dead wrong or simply a pain in the neck, so give the rhetoric a rest and do this:

REVERT TO RULE 2.
SMILE.

Allow others their say because if your argument is going to produce nothing, then why argue?

Why are there so many books written about successful people and positive thinking?

I absolutely refuse to answer that question because the answer is so amazingly obvious, darlings.

:)

The stronger we make ourselves with all the gifts God gave us, the more positive impact we have on the world around us. The little world within and the bigger world outside our door.

It's up to us. To me. To you. To make a difference. So why not start that difference today?

I promise you, you have absolutely nothing to lose and a world of smiles to gain!

USA TODAY Bestselling author Ruth Logan Herne writes beautiful stories of faith, hope and love for multiple publishers and is absolutely thrilled that her midlife career change landed her in the realm of the publishing industry where she could use a lifetime of nametag and hairnet jobs to create absolutely unforgettable characters and settings. She loves talking with readers and writers! Hang out with her on Facebook, visit her website ruthloganherne.com, send her an email at loganherne@gmail.com or jive with her at the Yankee Belle Cafe on Thursdays, a fun, low-key blog where she and a bunch of other wonderful ladies talk about life, food, kids, homes and all the little things that make a day a day!