Expect The Unexpected

I am going to pull a piece of writing from Dr. Keith Bell's book 76 Rules For Outperforming The Competition.

No matter how well you plan, practice or prepare, there will likely be challenges that you haven't anticipated. When they appear, you must adjust and cope with them.

You won't know the nature of unexpected challenges will be, but you still can prepare. You can prepare for a wide variety of circumstances. You can train your skills. You can practice coping. You can rehearse a calm, efficient, conquest of any surprise assault.

Prepare yourself to adapt to unexpected circumstances. They will likely occur.

This idea is so true in writing.

• You find that the genre you are writing is no longer going to work in the market.
• Your editor gets a new job and you are getting a new editor.
• You and your agent have to part ways.
• Your computer crashes
• You lose your manuscript
• etc., etc., etc.

So what do you do in these cases? Stop and think. Making rash decisions will not get what you want. Sure, for that moment, you may feel you have fixed everything, but what about the long term effect.

The key is patience. The key is critical thinking. Just be prepared.

Have a great weekend.