Investment:
As a developing novel writer, it is essential to carry out a critical assessment of your writing skills. However, this can be painful in the face of bad reviews. To conduct this evaluation, you need not just coping skills, an investment in yourself. Build self-significance, not performance-significance.
Performance significance
Performance-significance has two components. The first is allowing how you feel about yourself to determines your sense of self-value. You either “feel good” about yourself or not. You either “feel like liking yourself” or you don’t. The second component of performance significance is permitting your state of progress on your book to set your self-value. Because each of these components is based on an. unsteady foundation, your sense of self-worth is impaired, your ability to manage defeat is easily overcome, and in the face of defeat, you feel devalued, beginning a self-destructive spiral.
The false assumption underlying performance-significance is the belief that your self-worth is not constant, and that it can be influenced by your activities. In performance-significance, your self-worth is evaluated against the two measures of feelings and accomplishments. Since these two metrics are variable, their connection to your self-worth suggests that your value also fluctuates. Under the rule of performance-significance, you have high self-worth on good days, and low value on bad days. You’re measured by your accomplishments, and, since these vary, then so must your value.
However, worth is constant. It does not waver with feelings, nor does it increase or decrease with your sense of daily success or failure. Your worth retains its same, constant, elevated value regardless of the external circumstances, Your performance can vary from day to day, based on events that are usually out of your control. Feelings are affected by many factors, including but not limited to stress, praise, criticism, hunger, fatigue, hormones, victory, and defeat. However, worth remains constant, and your valuation of that worth must also remain immutably high.
In a tumultuous sea of anguish and activity, a clear and solid sense of your worth and value that is independent of external circumstances is a solid and dependable anchor for the developing novel writer.
Thus the reality of your (immutable) worth is greater than the (fluxing) reality of the criticism or praise that you face (which changes from day to day).
Being unafraid of criticism, you’re free to accept its constructive aspects, and to develop and sharpen your novel writing skills, because you’re not damaged by the disapproval of others.
A good sense of your high worth allows you to maintain your balance when you sense that your novel’s progress is threatened. When you think that you have lost your way. Your worth is an anchor in the stormy seas that a novelist must navigate.
Recognize that, as your novel progresses, your sense of self-worth will come under assault. Anticipate and expect these attacks, turning them to your advantage. View your most challenging times as the days when your sense of self-value is tested. Use these times to observe how well your source of self-worth sustains you.
Your short term goal is to have your sense of worth independent of external criticism. Ultimately, you want it to be separate and apart from your career trajectory.
Don’t let working toward this goal encourage inconsiderate actions on your part. While you should always consider what others think, do not let what they express influence your deep seated sense of how you value yourself.
Making a mistake should not change your self-esteem, and the need for you to apologize should not diminish it. In fact, a secure sense of self-worth will make it easier to hear clearly, consider carefully, and apologize freely and openly; while you may be under attack, that attack cannot damage your sense of purpose and self-esteem.
Critique your novelist strengths and weaknesses
With your self-worth intact, ask “What are my writing strengths and weaknesses?” Interview yourself. What do you enjoy about writing? Why? Which tasks do you recognize as necessary but nevertheless try to shun? Why? Do you despise the background research necessary for your book? Is creativity difficult? Is self-editing fun? How about creating back stories for characters? Some writers enjoy copyediting. Evaluate your strengths and weaknesses. Ask probing questions, increasing the drill depth until you get answers.
But remember that complete reliance on your strengths is a path to failure.
The basketball player who is a superb right handed dribbler but can’t dribble left handed is defeated time and again on the court. The baseball star who is a skilled hitter but runs bases poorly doesn’t score as often as she should. An overwhelming fast ball can be a formidable pitch. However, if this is the only pitch in the pitcher’s repertoire, then the opposition adapts to it, eventually defeating him.
Great sports men and women have adopted the philosophy that success requires not just their talents but also their willingness to convert their weaknesses into strengths. This is what you must do as a writer. Relying only on your strengths is a failing tactic. You must not only overcome your weakness, but convert your weakness to a strength. In his way, you grow as a writer.
Developing these new skills is difficult and humbling. Working on a weakness requires the skilled athlete to work as hard as, and to appear as clumsy as, the unskilled player. This can be an ego-bruising experience. However, converting weaknesses to strengths expands the dimension of the athlete’s performance. By mastering the curve ball, the pitcher converts himself from a good pitcher to a masterful one.
With your self-worth intact enter the process of weakness conversion. Get used to doing what you don’t feel like doing in order to be the novelist that you want to become.