Something pulled me from my warm bed and hour of mindless magazine reading today. I was thinking about my last post.
I was thinking about how Walt Disney encountered a lot of bad people in the biz and still waded in his way through the slime and got to the other side. In fact, not just in spite of the greedy people out there but because he had resilience.
There are many traits important in having a successful freelance writing business and I definitely think resilience is one of them.
Resilience helps you keep going. It’s what helped Olympic winner and best-selling author Bonnie St. John endure divorce, disability and difficulty in her life. (You can read my interview with her here.) And it’s what gets most writers over that initial hump, criticism and rejection.
There were several times when Disney faced harsh criticism of his work. In fact it was displayed at an exhibit in the Walt Disney Family museum. There was a letter from an early production company Disney worked with who said they did not make a single dollar on his latest efforts and that he should be ashamed of himself for the lack of quality in his work.
Talk about a bad critique!
I guess at that point, he could have shriveled up in a little hole and decided never to draw again or he could have got revenge. But he didn’t do either. Actually he apologized and continued his efforts. And we’re all the better for it.
In the freelance writing business, there are so many chances to give up, so many times along the pursuit of your dreams to shrug your shoulders and call it a day. Yet, you keep going. It’s why you’re here. Maybe you are like me and can’t imagine it any other way.
But why not tell me yourself? How do you handle the plight of being a freelance writer?
