Gratitude, wins and losses, and weird Bisbee (Weekend Coffee Share #9)

*Yawn* Good morning, and welcome to the weekend coffee share, hosted by Natalie the Explorer! It’s Sunday morning, and I’m only half-caffed, so come on in, pull up a seat, and let’s finish caffeinating. I’m still scrambling to finish a Christmas horror story to submit for an anthology, so I’m going to keep things short today.

Why losses seem to outweigh wins

First, let’s talk about wins and losses–in writing and in life. Jenny Hansen on the wonderful Writers in the Storm blog has a great post called Writing and the Law of Loss Aversion. I’d never heard of the law of loss aversion before, but once she explained it, boy howdy, did it resonate. According to the law of loss aversion:

Losses carry more than twice the psychological impact of gains.
Jenny Hansen, Writing and the Law of Loss Aversion

Oof. I have no trouble believing that statement. I can read a glowing critique of my work and forget all the praise, while the one suggestion for improvement echoes in my brain till doomsday. And as Jenny points out, we writers have to deal with a lot of losses–rejections, bad reviews, negative critiques, ignored blog posts (ahem), and lots more. The only way to avoid those losses is to never put anything out for anyone to see–and that in itself is a huge loss.

How gratitude helps compensate for losses

So, what to do? Jenny offers several great suggestions, but the one that resonated most with me is to practice gratitude. And I phrased it that way–practice gratitude–deliberately. Practice here has 2 meanings: practice like you’d practice the piano and practice as in a daily practice. Of course, those 2 meanings are related–you’re practicing, duh–but they have slightly different connotations, and both apply to being grateful. First, since we’re swimming upstream against the current of the Law of Loss Aversion, we have to practice being grateful in the face of losses. It takes effort and diligence to learn how to be grateful, because apparently our brains are wired to focus on the L rather than the W column. We have to train our minds to flip that focus, to make ourselves really see and savor the Ws.

And that’s where the second meaning of practice comes in: creating a regular ritual of gratitude. I used to do that. I used to start each morning with about 20-30 minutes of journaling that included listing 3 things I was grateful for. I stopped, because that 20-30 minutes came out of my daily writing time, and I wanted to spend it writing, but I need to add back the gratitude part. I miss that. I need that.

Rekindling my gratitude practice

So I’m going to start today. Right here, right now. [trumpet fanfare] Here are 3 things I’m grateful for at the start of this new week:

It’s the start of a new week. I’m alive, I’m healthy, and I can make this week into something great.
Fall is here! I love fall! Cool mornings, Halloween, cool evenings, Halloween decorations, a renewed sense of energy, Halloween costumes, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving food… Bring. It. On.
My Christmas horror story is coming together. It’s not done yet, but it will be soon, and I’m really happy with how it’s turning out.

And now for something completely different…

The weirdness that is Bisbee, Arizona

Thanks for hanging in there for the heavy stuff about wins, losses, and gratitude. Now let’s have some fun. I still have lots of pictures from Bisbee to share (see Looking Back at September and Bisbee Noir and a Bit of Non-News for previous batches). Today I’ll show you the weird and funny side of Bisbee: