Success is a strange room to suddenly find yourself in. Having spent all my life amidst the crocodile swamps on the front lawn of the publishing industry mansion – or occasionally huddling, loose leaf papers in hand on the front porch, waiting for the butler to let me into the entry foyer – I got used to being an outcast. It’s a well-worn path. The front porch is littered with the abandoned manuscripts of those who came before and left unsatisfied. The swamp is also littered with dire warning signs of those who never made it to the porch: "Impossible," "Commercial sellouts," and (my personal favorite), "A waste of time."

But, those who dodge the crocodiles and the nay-sayers, who patiently wait out the interminable time between Query and Acceptance, doggedly beginning the journey again when the answer, inevitably, is "no," will eventually find  that front door opened. The inhabitants of the mansion will peep out the window and see you patiently waiting. Perhaps, as in my case, they’ll realize, "I’ve seen her out there before, haven’t I?" You’ll catch an agent’s eye, or an editor’s heart, and suddenly there you will be, in the  foyer, awaiting further discovery.

And then your path changes.  Beginning again isn’t such an arduous journey. You have a friend in that mansion, and your agent or editor has shown you the back door, where there are no crocodiles, and you don’t have to wait for the butler to let you in. more...

Several years ago, a friend of mine had lost a substantial amount of weight and a mutual friend asked if I thought she would be able to keep it off.  I said, “ Oh yeah – sure!” 

I remembered this exchange recently and realized I’d been wrong.  That person had gone on to regain the weight.  But although I was clearly wrong, there wasn’t any other answer I would have preferred giving, and certainly not the one that would have made me right. I had been asked to give my prognosis, but a prognosis is ultimately just a guess.  So I guessed in favor of the best change. 

Diagnosis is when we’re told What We Have, basically another way of saying Where We Are Right Now. Prognosis is when we’re told What Might Happen – basically another way of saying Where We Might Go Next.  People tend to be enamored with prognosis; it grows from our discomfort with the unknown.  But it’s easy to see the weakness in prognosticating, for there are more variations of possibilities than there are people on the planet. To feel empowered, it’s necessary to get grounded in where we want to go rather than fixated on an idea of where we could end up.  more...