FromEdie: A writer’s attitude shapes how they face rejection, edits, and success. Discover how the right perspective can transform your writing journey.
How a Writer’s Attitude Shapes Perspective and the Writing Journey
by Martin Wiles @LinesFromGod
Attitude changes perspective. It’s a fact of life. It’s also a fact of writing.
In one of the M*A*S*H episodes, morale was down. Not difficult to understand. They lived close to the front. The weather was unpredictable, casualties kept arriving, and they never had enough, let alone the right, supplies.
Colonel Potter brought the officers into his office one evening and shared a good bottle of spirits with them. When that didn’t seem to help, he told them about one of his earlier experiences during World War 1. Then he shared that all-important quote about attitude changing perspective: “If you ain’t where you are, you’re no place.” They went to the party and had a good time.
I once knew a mom and her son who were morale busters (something, by the way, we who edit also should never be to our clients). As their pastor, I visited them monthly, but doing so was arduous. They were nice, but their attitude about life made being around them tough. Everything was against them, nothing ever went their way, and they never had enough money. After thirty minutes, I left with their woe-is-me attitude dogging my heels.
Viktor Frankl also recognized the critical nature of attitudes and perspectives. In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, he shared what he discovered during his three years of captivity in World War II concentration camps.
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.[1]
Frankl mimicked Jesus’s attitude. The religious leaders hounded Jesus. They thought he was a phony. They were also jealous because so many of their followers left them to follow Jesus. Despite opposition, Jesus kept a good attitude and kept doing his Father’s work.
Paul tells us to have the same attitude as Christ: “You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to” (Philippians 2:5-6 NLT).
Jesus’s attitude was characterized by humility and sacrificial serving. Often, we writers must check our attitudes to maintain a proper perspective on who we are, whose we are, and why we do what we do. It’s easy to lose sight of these things in the dog-eat-dog world of writing, publishing, marketing, editing, and competition.
Life is difficult in various ways for different people, and writers are no exception. Worth, identity, and self-esteem are important words. Grasping their correct definitions helps us maintain a positive attitude and perspective toward our writing.
Self-esteem is how we feel about ourselves (or our writing). It rises and falls, based on circumstances and what others say (think rejections, critiques).
But self-esteem has nothing to do with our worth (I am a writer created in God’s image) or identity (I am a writer). Our worth comes from God’s image in us. And our identity is found through our relationship with God (not how many writers or editors we know or how many things we’ve had published). No matter where we happen to be on the self-esteem Richter Scale of writing, we are still God’s child—loved unconditionally by him—and of great worth because his image resides in us.
Use the writing gift God has given you to spread his love across the world. Take the marketing plunge. Write when you don’t feel like writing. Take rejection with a grain of salt. Do the dreaded edits, believing God will use the editor to help you make your work shine. And above all, keep a good attitude. Doing so will change your perspective on writing.
[1] Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Hodder & Stoughton, 1959), 66.
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