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Home » Career » Page 28

Career

Are You Being Trashed?

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon September 25, 2014
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No matter who you are or how nice you are, some people won’t like you. That’s a fact we all have to live with. Even worse, people we thought were friends can turn on us. And sometimes we may become the victim of unhappy people who enjoy talking rudely about others.

Know the meaning of “trashed”

You are being trashed if someone is making harmful statements about you with intent of damaging your friendships and reputation — or at least not caring if the negative talk hurts you. The truth of the statements is not the issue because your detractor believes them to be true because of her perspective. If you are being slandered, that is a different issue requiring legal advice beyond the scope of this post.

Being trashed hurts

We may be unaware that we’re being trashed behind our backs. Or, a good friend may clue us in. This knowledge will hurt. Grief, denial, upset, and anger aretypical reactions, followed by a strong desire to defend ourselves. I recommend not giving in to that desire.

Remain calm

I realize this is, as the cliche goes, easier said than done. Chances are good that you don’t deserve the bad things being said about you. The urge to tell your side of the story is reasonable. But unless not defending yourself will result in direct and certain harm, I recommend staying quiet.

Don’t enter the fray

Why? Because defending yourself will force your friend to take sides. She may not side with you after all. And with good intentions, your friend may try to act as peacemaker, which can backfire. Also, if your detractor discovers you have entered the fray, he may escalate the number and intensity of comments, resulting in a feud that could be worse than the initial comments.

Slay the beast

I have found that the fewer times complaints and accusations are verbalized, the better. Let harmful comments die the early death they deserve.

Don’t be a bore

Another good reason to stay quiet is to keep from becoming a bore. Share what’s happened with a trusted confidante to help you gain perspective. But stop after that. Most people are willing to offer sympathy after one or two accounts of terrible treatment, but no one wants to hear the litany again and again. And every time you complain, you are keeping the comments alive and reliving your own negative emotions.

Pity your attacker

It’s sad when someone has nothing better to do, or derives a strange pleasure from, trashing others. Trashing others is also a way of getting attention and sympathy. The person may feel victorious if she causes you to lose a friend. Friends who let trash talk cause them to abandon you have tenuous ties to you at best. Let them go. And consider the tragedy of lives controlled by negative talk.

Be wise yet harmless

If you are clued in about someone’s true character and feelings about you, be grateful to have the knowledge. Then you can then be as wise a a serpent but as harmless as a dove, to cite advice the Lord gave His disciples.

Continue to live a life of integrity, with dignity. You can and will rise above negativity.

Your turn:

If you knew your friend was being trashed, would you tell him? Why or why not?

Have you been trashed? What did you do?

What is your favorite advice for those dealing with negative rumors?

 

 

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Category: Book Review, CareerTag: bad reviews, Career

How Publishers Make Decisions

By Dan Balowon September 23, 2014
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We all agree that book publishing is changing fast. New technology, new formats and new ways to sell books have changed everything.  Well, almost everything. One thing has not changed…the fundamental way decisions are made as to what new authors an agent represents and publishers publish. It has always been and remains people making quick, subjective decisions (aka QSD). A number of years ago I …

Read moreHow Publishers Make Decisions
Category: Book Business, Book Proposals, Career, The Publishing LifeTag: Book Business, publishing, The Publishing Life

Travel Woes? It Will be Okay!

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon September 18, 2014
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As I prepare to attend the ACFW conference, I recall how many things can go wrong on travel. They can, and they do. But the world will not end. Please remember this. How do I know? Because I used to consider myself indispensable. But the graveyards are filled with indispensable people. And I must remember that the world will not end if something goes wrong. For example: 1.) I missed my flight. …

Read moreTravel Woes? It Will be Okay!
Category: Career, ConferencesTag: Career, Conferences, travel

3 Reasons Why Rejection is Good

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon August 28, 2014
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I’ll be the first to admit that rejection doesn’t feel good, so how can it be good? Well, a rejection: …allows you to close the door and move on to the next opportunity. …shows that the other person doesn’t share your enthusiasm enough to be your partner. Learning this allows you the freedom to find the right partner. …may be a sign of God’s will. His …

Read more3 Reasons Why Rejection is Good
Category: Career, Get Published, RejectionTag: Rejection

You Are Not Alone

By Karen Ballon August 27, 2014
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts about proposals. Clearly, a lot of us struggle with this side of being a writer. As I was thinking over what to write for tackling those problematic proposal elements, I rediscovered the video below, made in ’09. It was created by best-selling authors Angela Hunt, Kristin Billerbeck, Robin Lee Hatcher, and Terri Blackstock. These authors, back in ’09, had written a …

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Category: Book Proposals, Career, Get Published

Mao and the Four Pests

By Dan Balowon August 26, 2014
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In the late 1950’s , Chairman Mao Zedong of China implemented the first stages of his Great Leap Forward, an effort to move China away from a predominantly agrarian society to a modern industrial and political power. One of the first parts of the GLF was the Four Pests Campaign. The Chinese government identified four scourges on their society and set out to eradicate them.  They were: rats, flies, …

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Category: Book Business, Career, The Publishing LifeTag: Career, The Publishing Life

Publishers are From Mercury, Authors are From Pluto

By Dan Balowon August 19, 2014
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Next time someone tells you that Christianity is not as valid as science, just remind them that not many years ago, Pluto was assumed to be a planet, but in 2006 was determined not to be one, but instead was a “dwarf planet”, of which there a several dozen in our solar system alone. If you took a test in grade school and answered, “How many planets are there in our solar system” with the number …

Read morePublishers are From Mercury, Authors are From Pluto
Category: Book Business, Career, Communication, The Publishing LifeTag: Authors, Book Business, publishers, The Publishing Life

8 Things Authors Should No Longer Ask Their Publisher

By Dan Balowon August 12, 2014
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Publishing is changing faster than ever before.  Book publishers have been wrenching to find new business models that make them more flexible, efficient and adaptable to the realities of the digital publishing age. Within this fast-change world, another group who has felt the pain of shifting tectonic plates are authors who have been around publishing for ten or more years.  Some issues that used …

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Category: Book Business, CareerTag: Book Business, Career, publishing

The Morals of the Story

By Karen Ballon July 30, 2014
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As promised, here are the morals—and names—of the story of our young writer from last week. If you missed the post, please go back and read it. The young writer? None other than the gifted Lori Benton. Her second novel, The Pursuit of Tameson Littlejohn, released in April 2014. The first editor, who read her story from far, far away, and then became friends with Lori? Yours truly. But Lori isn’t …

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Category: Awards, Career, Conferences, Creativity, Get Published, Writing CraftTag: Career, Get Published, Writing Craft

One Author’s Journey: A Tale of Publishing

By Karen Ballon July 23, 2014
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With all this talk of publishing and where it’s been and where it’s going, I thought I’d tell you a story. One that happened not years ago, in the much ballyhooed Golden Age, but recently. So gather round, settle in, and listen… Once upon a time, there was a young girl who wanted to write, who grew up to be a young woman who did write, creating stories she loved. Stories that made her heart soar. …

Read moreOne Author’s Journey: A Tale of Publishing
Category: Career, Conferences, Creativity, Get Published, Writing CraftTag: Get Published, perseverance, Writing Craft
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