Sarah Rhea Werner:

This is the Write Now podcast Sarah Werner, episode 136: Making Your Own Opportunities.

Welcome to Write Now, the podcast that helps all writers, aspiring, professional, and otherwise to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m your host, Sarah Werner, and I am sitting here on a beautiful morning in early fall. I have a cup of peppermint tea. Well, actually, it’s a mug in the shape of the Death Star, but it’s full of peppermint tea, and I’m just so excited to be here with you today. Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening.

Let’s talk about opportunity. Throughout my writing career, which… Oh, that was really loud. The house across the street is getting new siding put on, so we’re just going to go with this. Throughout my career, I’ve seen a lot of similarities between opportunity and luck. I’ve had a lot of each, so I’ve had a lot of opportunities, and I’ve had a lot of luck, but I’ve noticed that both of them stem from a similar thing.

Recently, I read a quote from tennis star Serena Williams, and it was all about luck. Basically, she said, “Luck has nothing to do with it. I got to where I am because I worked really, really hard.” There really is something to that. I think that we make our own luck. If you are a person who feels perennially unlucky, you might take some issue with this, and I totally get that. Maybe you’re the kind of person who never wins anything, contests, bingo, the lottery, raffles, sports-related things, whatever it is, and I get that. Circumstances of chance, pure chance, very seldom go in my favor as well. But when something is not 100% up to pure chance, if there is some way that I can have an influence or have my skills get in there and help me out, I’ll take advantage of that.

Here’s what I mean, here is a very clear and concise example in the world of writing: When I first released Girl In Space, which was my first fictional podcast, my first audio drama, it took off in a way that I had not expected or anticipated. The week I launched, my show appeared on the front page of what was then Apple iTunes and what is now called Apple Podcasts. It was in New & Noteworthy on the front page and a lot of people downloaded it because of that. Since Spotify Podcasts were launching at the same time, Spotify reached out to me and asked if they could feature Girl In Space on their new home page, and so I got more exposure. After that, Girl In Space started appearing on other homepages for Podbean and some other places. I got interviews, I got all sorts of things coming into my door where I could further talk about the show and encourage people to listen. A year later after the show had been out for a while, I was approached by an agent, and then my whole TV thing kind of took off.

I’m not saying all of this to brag, I promise. I don’t like bragging, I don’t like talking about myself, but the reason I’m saying this is to make a point. When all of this happened, I had a lot of people say, “Wow, you sure are lucky,” and I started to think about the opportunities that I was getting. I started to think about, what is luck? Is it just a matter of being in the right place at the right time? Does it mean that I am somehow favored by the stars and the celestial heavens? Does it mean that I put in a ton of work and made the best possible piece of fiction I could with what I had at the time? If my show wasn’t as high quality as it is, would it still have taken off? Would the luck still have reached me? If I hadn’t taken time off of work and invested money in a plane ticket to go to a podcasting conference, to tell people about my show, to pass out my business card, to make friends in the podcasting world, to hand my business card to some folks who I later learned worked at Apple, would I still have had the same luck?

I’m not here to change your mind about whether or not luck exists, but I am here to examine where luck and opportunity comes from. Even before I get into all of that, I want to acknowledge that yes, I am very privileged to have had the time and space to have had the ability to take time off of work to promote my passion project. I’m educated, I’m white, and even though I grew up super poor, I also grew up being taught how to manage and save money.

Here’s the thing: There’s not just one thing that contributes to success. It’s not all luck. It’s not all privilege. It’s not all skill. I think it’s a mixture and there’s not an exact ratio I can point to or dissect or reverse-engineer, but it’s not all one thing. Maybe I was lucky to be born into the family that I was. Maybe I was lucky that some of the people I handed out my business card to were Apple Podcast representatives. Maybe I was lucky that one person I met at a conference ended up connecting with me at the next conference and insisting that he introduce me to an agent.

But I also had to put myself in a position for these things to happen. I had to make a good show. I had to make some tough decisions: Do we go on vacation this year or do I put that money toward going to a podcasting conference? Do I spend the money on business cards? Do I hire someone to design them for me? Do I take my chances and design them myself? Do I buy 100 or 500? How liberally do I give them out? What do I do when I give out my business cards? Do I smile and do I just talk about me or do I let the other person talk first and listen to them and smile and make a friend before saying, “Oh, and hey, I have a show if you want to check it out”?

I realize in saying all of this I sound really smug and I’m not trying to sound smug. What I’m doing is trying to clarify that there is a chain reaction that happens when we prioritize our creative work and when we make intentional decisions and open doors for our creative work to be seen and heard and enjoyed. Some of you may be saying, “Well, good for you, Sarah, but I don’t have the money or the ability to take time off work, to go to a conference, a writer’s conference, a podcasting conference, whatever it is, so I’m just never going to have success ever.” Well, again, it’s not just one thing. You can still sow seeds where you are right now, working really hard and creating the best possible creative work that you can, infusing it with integrity and love and quality, making friends along the way, other people in your community, other writers, other artists, and making relationships with your eventual readers/listeners, whoever it is who’s going to be in your audience.

If you want some tips on how to do this, I encourage you to go back into the Write Now podcast archives and listen to episodes 84, 85, and 87. I have a three-part marketing/community-building/PR triptych of episodes that will tell you exactly how to do this, how to make your presence more seen and more known and more heard online, and how to really make friends within the industry and with your audience. All of these little steps add up and any one of them could be the spark that starts a chain reaction to your success because it is possible. I believe this is possible for you. If you are listening right now, it is possible for you to be a massive creative success.

Honestly, from what I’ve discovered in my own experience, it’s not about creating and following a strict plan. For me, and again, everyone’s experience is different and I can only speak to my own experience, for me, success came from planting as many seeds as possible and creating as many opportunities for myself as possible, so creating your own luck and creating your own opportunities.

Again, if you’re not a hundred percent sure where to start, I advise that you start with your creativity, infusing that again with the most love and passion and talent and time and effort and quality as you possibly can, and then also getting started on the marketing and PR side of things. Again, you can go back and listen to episodes, 84, 85, and 87 of the Write Now podcast and they will help you do that.

There’s also a really crucial decision and that is whether you are going to play an active or passive role in your success as a writer and creator. I hold live office hours for my podcasting students and a couple of weeks ago, one of my students said, “I keep pitching this idea. I keep submitting this idea to contests and nothing is happening and I’m so frustrated,” and I was like, “Well, okay, good. I’m glad that you’re submitting your work. Have you published your work?” and he said, “Oh, no, no, no. I need to get an agent first. No, I need to win a contest so that people see that I am worthy.” This student very clearly had in his head the path to success and it was: “Win a contest/land an agent and then I can publish my work.”

I suggested, “Well, hey, you could self-publish and market your stuff and start building an audience and be seen and start opening the door for other opportunities.” I’ve been working with him for about two years and he’s of the mindset that self-publishing is a silver trophy, like self-publishing is not legit because you’re not being chosen by someone else, you’re not being recognized by someone else, you’re not being curated by a third party. I’m not the kind of teacher, I’m not the kind of person who’s going to say, “You must do this,” because not everything is right for everyone, and I recognize that, but if you’re going to resign yourself to waiting around for someone else to see and acknowledge and choose you, you might be waiting a little bit longer than you want. Sure, good things might come of it. I really, really want this student to find an agent and win a contest. That would be amazing. But in the meantime, maybe he could take and use one of his other many ideas and publish and just see what happens.

I’ve seen a lot of writers and creators of different media waiting around for a contest, for an agent, for an offer, for a grant to land some sort of existing opportunity, to fit into one of the very few spaces that is created for creators, to walk away with one of a limited number of trophies, literally or figuratively speaking. I also want to be very clear: There is nothing wrong with wanting an agent or wanting to win a contest, wanting to be invited to join a network, or to have your work published in so-and-so magazine. There’s nothing wrong with waiting to be offered a deal. But what breaks my heart is when I see writers who think this is the only way to be published. There’s not just one path. All successful writers are not contest winners. Not all successful writers got there by having an agent or being traditionally published.

My question for you is: Which opportunities are you waiting for? Also, which opportunities can you create for yourself? What seeds can you plant? What can you do today with what you have? Who do you know, or where could you meet people who could give you a hand up, who could connect you with other people? My neighbor is very vigorously mowing his lawn, so I’m just going to keep going. How can you take action to be seen or heard or recognized without waiting around passively for someone to notice you? Is what you’re creating in a place where people can notice it?

When I first started Girl In Space, I didn’t have this extremely detailed plan where, “Okay, I’m going to produce my show and launch it at this time so that this and this lines up, and then I’m going to go to a conference. I’m going to meet all of these people, especially this person and this person, and then they’re going to drag me with them to success.” No, I just went into it with a mindset of “I’m going to make as many friends as possible, I’m going to be flexible, and I’m going to leave the door open for opportunities.” I think that that is how we begin to make our own luck.

It’s easy to trace it back in retrospect: Yes, do this, do this, and then do this, but it could have been any number of paths. I just had to plant the seeds. I’m going to murder that lawnmower. Oh. Some might call this a spell of bad luck. I should probably know better than to try to record on a beautiful 70-degree day. This is making my own anti-luck, which is also possible. You can really sabotage yourself. You can really damage yourself. Ah. I think he’s done. Crossing my fingers.

But yes, making your own luck, making your own opportunities, staying flexible, and being open to opportunities that maybe you weren’t necessarily looking for but are chasing after you because the opportunities that we think we’ll get are not always the opportunities that we get. Small opportunities, small pieces of luck that we seed for ourselves often don’t turn into something for years. During those years, you have to let relationships grow and flourish and you have to make connections with people and you have to build a reputation and above all, you have to create good, quality creative work. I know a lot of this comes from not only choosing yourself but believing in yourself, believing your work is good. Believing that you have a place among the authors and writers whom you venerate, prioritizing, setting aside time and space, and maybe even some finances to bring opportunities a little bit closer to you choosing yourself instead of waiting to be chosen by someone who doesn’t really know you and doesn’t know the great things that you’re capable of.

Honestly, when it all comes down to it, sometimes you’ve just got to look at all of the other people who are getting amazing opportunities all around you and create, anyway. Create out of spite, if nothing else. I feel like that’s its own Write Now episode is creating out of spite, but that’s really what we’ve got to focus on. Meeting people is great, making important relationships is great, getting speaking gigs is great, meeting agents is great, winning contests is great, but none of that can happen if you don’t have a solid body of creative work and if you’re not continually investing in your work with your time and your energy, if you’re not constantly willing to learn and grow and improve and hone your craft. What are you waiting for? Who are you waiting for? Who do you envy right now? What opportunities are open to you? What opportunities can you create? Are you willing to keep your eyes open and to stay flexible and to welcome in opportunities that you may not have even thought of to begin with?

I hope this episode is helpful. I hope it’s got you thinking. I would really love to hear your thoughts about luck and opportunity. As always, my show notes for this episode, today’s episode is number 136, the show notes have a comment section, so if you go out to sarahwerner.com, that’s S-A-R-A-H W-E-R-N-E-R dot com, and navigate to the show notes for this episode of the Write Now podcast, episode number 136, and you scroll down to the bottom, there is a space for you to leave me your thoughts. I read every single comment and I respond to every single comment that I get out on my website, so I would love to further engage you in conversation about your own experience, or maybe even what you would like to be your experience moving forward: What do you hope for? What could you be doing that you’re not doing? What do you need?

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Special thanks for this episode go out to Tamara Salmon, Amanda King, Christine Black, Laurie, Regina Calabrese, Amber Fetessi, Dennis Martin, Lidija Hernie, EK Knight, Mark Bullock, Michael Beckwith, Mike Tefft, Sarah Banham, Summer, Tiffany Joiner, and Whitney Magruder. Thank you all so much for your generous donations. If you are interested in becoming a patron of the Write Now podcast out on Patreon, just go to the show notes for today’s episode and click on the button that says Help Support This Podcast. Alternately, you can also go out to patreon.com, that’s P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash Sarah Rhea Werner, that’s S-A-R-A-H R-H-E-A W-E-R-N-E-R, and make your pledge. Thank you. I appreciate it so very much.

Again, I would love to hear your thoughts, your experiences. Let me know out in the comments on the show notes for today’s episode at sarahwerner.com. When you’re out at sarahwerner.com, you can also sign up for my weekly newsletter. I send out a letter to my newsletter subscribers every Monday, so every Monday morning, you will get a letter from me in your email inbox just about my current thoughts on creating and creativity and all sorts of good stuff, so sign up for my newsletter if you haven’t already. Again, that is out at sarahwerner.com and it’s called the Dear Creators Newsletter.

Phew, all right. I think that’s it for today. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being here once again. I truly appreciate you listening to the show. This has been episode 136 of the Write Now podcast, the podcast that helps all writers, aspiring, professional, and otherwise to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m Sarah Werner. Let’s go out there and make some opportunities.