Setting up for success

I have never been a volleyball fan. Despite being a varsity gymnast in high school I found volleyball too brutal of a sport to be any fun.

One thing I did learn from Volleyball, however, was the power of coordinated effort. One of the positions in volleyball is called the setter [or at least I think that was what the position was called. Shows you how much I love Volleyball. ha-ha]

Okay, I love college football. Let's go with that. [The Fiesta Bowl was heartbreaking for this Buckeye!] When they call a play everyone has to know what position to go to, who to line up against and where to watch. The defense has to try to read the play and prepare to stop the person from running the ball in to the end zone [clearly, I love football more than volleyball].

As writers and business owners we have our own end zone. Our goals will determine the plays we run. We will also encounter opposition.

We must always be on offense calling out play after play...making little movements a few yards at a time until we hit the end zone PUBLICATION.

Then immediately we go RIGHT back where we started from and do the same thing all over again. Sometimes rejection will push us back and the other team will score against us [the other team being our own negative self-talk] but we still end up BACK at the 50 yard line.

I can't call your plays for you. You have to do that. Determine what your goal is. What you'll have to do to get there. And, most importantly, don't give up. Keep pushing incrementally forward.

For me college football is wrapping up. The bowl games are over. In August the teams will come out again. The winners will have to once again prove they have the stuff. The losers will have a chance to come back and have their time to shine.

As writers every day, every week, every project we prove ourselves again and again. The book is simply the culmination of years of sweat and tears.

Where will you be next year? That will be determined by what you do in the next 12 hours. And the 12 after that. and the 12 after that. Well, you get the picture.

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Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at www.WritingCareerCoach.com
Learn more about Tiffany's Marketing techniques on her main blog.
Read Tiffany's award winning manuscript "A Face in the Shadow" on her fiction blog.
She writes a blog for the Christian writer Tuesdays at Writer's Rest.