STL Writers Connect » Inspiration

My Little Limmerick

katiewright — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 19:57:17 +0000

Writing is a challenge, my friend
I’ve no choice; writing til the end
To tell all the story,
And see its final glory.
Success we writers will comprehend

Fast and Easy…Fix

Jennifer Tobias — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:53:40 +0000

I was reading a brochure last night on “getting your home organized” and I could not help laughing when I re-read the titile, “Fast ad Easy Fix”…Wow! As I looked around my house, the new place I have just moved into in the past few weeks, I really laughed even more. The last thing I was thinking was , “fast and easy”….as I am tired and weary some evenings and then, I thought about about the fun and excitement there is with this new place. I am excited to have a computer room:) . I am excited to have a sunporch. I am doubly excited to have room..lot’s of room(after 850 sq. feet of apartment living)…Yes, I am excited

What makes the hard work, the struggles, the headaches of anything fun? exciting? or fast and easy?….ATTITUDE. Yep. Anything can be fun. Anything can be exciting. Anything can be easy……that is if our mind set is one of just that…ready to see and experience the greatness of that work…

And so Jessica, keep blogging such great posts as you are doing! It may have been scary in the beginning. I t may have seemed hard, but wow! You sure are excellent at it! …and I bet…you are finding it easy and fun , the more you do it!

Blog on!

Jennifer

“Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Badly”

Jessica Mertens — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:00:52 +0000

I was in my dance class last week, where we were introduced to a new dance style. The moves were particularly difficult and we were told that we would just have to practice, practice, practice if we wanted to get comfortable with them. The instructor said that it is about “this” point in the class that people start dropping out because they think they will never be as good as they would like to be. Then she said, “you know, there is a saying that “anything worth doing is worth doing badly”… until you get it right. I knew who said that! It was G K Chesterton. G K Chesterton was one of the most influential writers of the 20^th century. Over the years his quote became popular to remind people that, sometimes the things that became the most rewarding were the things that were the most difficult when they were first attempted. When you first learned to ride a bicycle and you fell, did you quit, or did you get back on until you could ride.

The chances of your first writing efforts producing a New York Times bestseller are minute. That’s okay. Just let go of that frustration and have fun. Don’t strive to say it perfectly, strive to say it in the way that it feels right for you.

Just commit yourself to the joy of doing and enjoy the thrill of improving at it. And you will improve as you practice writing.
Live by the law of reasonable expectations rather than by the law of perfection. Not only is perfection stressful, it’s also boring. Imperfection evokes humor and laughter while perfection evokes stress, frustration and anger.
Growth is the distance between doing something “badly” and doing something “excellent”. Tell yourself, “I will never experience growth if I am afraid of doing something badly”!

We need to stop looking at things we get into and in the beginning do “badly” as failures. You only really experience failure if you stop trying, doing something “badly” is not failure, it’s just a part of the process! So, practice writing, practice writing, practice writing.