Writers--Nix the Negativity!

I read a fascinating article/essay in Saturday's Wall Street Journal about the role of positives vs negatives in our lives. Of course, I equated it to the writing life, as well as my own personal life.

Psychologists studied the topic thinking the positives in life would be the stronger of the two. Much to their surprise, the opposite outcome resulted from their studies. The essay in the WSJ was adapted from a new book by John Tierney, a contributing editor to City Journal and Dr. Roy F. Baumeister, a research psychologist at the University of Queensland. The title of their book is The Power of Bad:  How the Negativity Effect Rules Us and How We Can Rule It--to be published by Penguin Press this week.

They found that bad health makes a bigger difference than good health, that a negative photo stimulates more electrical activity in the brain than a positive one, that " ...the pain of criticism is much stronger than the pleasure of praise." More about the book, its reviews, and the place to order can be found here.

The book deals with life in general, politics and more, but the portion I read made me consider our writing journeys. With the theory the authors present--that the negatives are far stronger than the positives we encounter--is it any wonder that writers get depressed with those rejections, bumpy roads to publication, and all the other little things in our writing lives that could be classified as negative? Look at that quote once more: "...the pain of criticism is much stronger than the pleasure of praise." It makes it seem as though we are up against a very tall wall in our writing journey. We know the 'pain of criticism' all too well.

Look at the woman in the photo above. It's pretty obvious that she's experiencing the negatives, isn't it? According to the authors of the book reviewed in the article, she will need to have a ratio of four positives to one negative to overcome those nasty feelings. If our negatives are so much stronger, we writers must work harder to overcome them and focus on the positives in our writing life. 

Granted, there are days when focusing on the good stuff isn't so easy. You'll need to work at doing so. We can't just say Oh, la-de-dah, everything's coming up roses. You may have to search hard to achieve that 4 to 1 ratio. If you're a list maker, start the negative and positive lists for your writing life. I hope you can make the positive list a great deal longer than the other one. 

We're at the threshold of a new year which seems to be a perfect time to make nixing the negativity one of your goals for 2020. Remember this--the more negatives you allow into your writing life, the harder it will be to focus on the positives. Once again, it's all up to you to overcome the downers. Maybe reading this brand new book might help.