I've been aggressively marketing my business the past couple of months and sometimes, when I don't hear from people after sending an LOI or I email an old contact and don't hear back, I'd question myself.

Not my credentials, because those clips are a fact. But i questioned whether I do have the chops to do the work/whether the contacts have confidence in my skills.

This week, I looked through my portfolio and one particular feature article boosted my confidence hugely. When I wrote that piece, I didn't know much about the industry and had to interview a completely new-to-me pool of subjects. Yet, I managed to find them, pin them down for an interview and wrote such a damn good piece one of the companies I interviewed has kept it on their website's press section for years.

For years I forgot about that gig. But seeing that clip reminded me what I'm capable of doing.. what I have already done. And I think, sometimes we need to take the time to remind ourselves where we come from and if we don't have that shiny clip yet, keep heart that the clips will happen in time.

Until then, the kudos file works wonders. 🙂

Keri, great idea. The more you can put in there, the better. It's a godsend when someone has just insulted you or treated you badly.

Anne, trust is essential. We can't do right by ourselves if we don't trust ourselves.

What a fun project, Paula! That had to feel good. 🙂

Like Keri, I plan to stat a kudos file now, starting with the three compliments I received a week or so ago.

I just finished a "why not?" project, but it was for myself, not a client. A local arts group was holing its second annual New Play Festival. A friend tried to get me to enter last year, but I'm not great with play writing (I don't know upstage from downstage) so I didn't enter. Out of the 100 or so entries, my friend's play was one of six or seven that "won" a reading. The turnout was really astounding – the room was so full people were literally spilling into the hall – and it was really entertaining and inspiring to see and hear actors the 10-minute plays and see writers' faces when the audience laughed or cried at their works.

I was hemming and hawing about entering this year. I had the germ of an idea, but didn't have much time. A couple weeks ago when my friend told me they had over 200 entries from across the country, but only one or two from our local area (and none from the host city, my city), I decided to enter just so someone was representing our town. With hundred of entries I know the odds are against my play being selected for a live reading – that sort of freed me up to write it the way I wanted to write it – ambiguous ending an all.