Writing Lessons From Horse Riding Lessons

Yesterday, my daughter had a fantastic riding lesson. OK, maybe fantastic was not the right word for it. The lesson appeared to be a complete disaster with the horse deciding that that would not be a lesson he wanted to participate in. And yet, the lesson did turn out to be fantastic because after the 90 minutes of what seemed to be a huge problem, the lessons she learned were amazing.

We are all going to have good and bad days, just like the horse. Sharper Eagle for the last month or so has been through the roof, incredible. He had a bad day. Just like us.

As writers, you too are going to have bad days. Everything you write on that current work in progress will be the biggest piece of you know what you have ever seen. You will know good and well that your agent is going to dump you, your editor is going to fire you and your family will disown you for all the time you wasted on that story.

But that is not going to be the case.

Something just didn't work out right. And, like my daughter, from that disaster, you will discover how to fix this issue and move on. You will learn how to overcome those obstacles so that problem hopefully will not show up again. What's more, is that you will learn more about yourself and your writing style. You will grow as a writer.

I fully get that during that moment, all of those comments will probably fall on deaf ears. But, know that somewhere in your brain, you will remember that you have gotten over problems like this in the past, and you will do so this time, and you will do so in the future.