We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Linne Marsh. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Linne below.
Alright, Linne thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?
The first step to being successful is defining it. What does success look like for you? Reaching the pinnacle of a goal is a very personal matter. If we rely on the strict definition of “success” as the accomplishment of an aim or purpose, we are left with the responsibility of defining the aim and purpose.
I am a highly goal-oriented person. Lists are my jam. I get the biggest thrill from crossing items I’ve completed off my list, so much so that I will add things to the list I’ve already completed just to cross them off. It might seem small, but it’s a powerful motivator. While I was in college, I could go to sleep at night, satisfied that my list was completely checked off. That defined my success for the day.
Things shifted in life and as a young mom, I was frustrated that my lists were no longer complete. I’d make a list and maybe get one task accomplished. Most nights, I felt like a failure. As I grew into my role, I shifted my mindset and adjusted my definition of success from completing the entire list to completing the most important task. I would write items in order of importance and tell myself, I will be successful if I get two items completed. Defeat morphed into accomplishment because completing one task was doable. And some days, I might even get two or three. I reframed my definition of success. It wasn’t about completing the entire list, it was about taking care of my kids and getting the most important item accomplished that day. Everything else was a bonus.
I’m aware that not everyone is a parent, but this system works in a professional capacity as well. For example, when I sit down to plan a semester for my students at Utah Tech, it can be overwhelming to prep sixteen weeks of content. So I start small: My first goal is to map out the major assignments and set the due dates. When I complete this task, I take a moment to enjoy the accomplishment of having the pillar assignments ready to go. Next, I block out the topics for the weeks leading up to each assignment. Then, I celebrate with chocolate. I continue this process until the semester is complete, and I have achieved my entire goal.
Success is all about how you define it. For me, it is small measurable steps that I can use to motivate me to achieve the larger goal.
Linne, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Linné Elizabeth Marsh is a writer and editor with a passion for storytelling. Linne did not seek out a career as a writer. She wanted to be a doctor, but when she got a “D” in Chemistry, she wrote a lot about it in a journal that’s long since been burned. Now she’s an award-winning author, adjunct English instructor, and, on occasion, a freelance content writer. With experience in both creative and technical writing, she specializes in crafting content that resonates with readers of fiction and non-fiction. She started her career as a freelance technical writer with Brainstorm Inc. writing explainer videos for how to use software like Microsoft Office. From there she accepted work with a variety of clients. The true bread and butter of her freelance career are explainer video companies: Ydraw and Wienot Films. Eventually, she returned to school and earned a Master’s in English from Arizona State University. This allowed her to pursue her dream of teaching in higher education.
In her role as an instructor at Utah Tech University, she strives to help students understand the value reading and writing has in their current roles as students and in their future roles as professionals. Spoiler alert: Reading and writing are vital to everyone’s success. She is dedicated to pursuing excellence in her craft and pushing the boundaries of what it means to be a writer in the digital age. When she’s not devouring chocolate while creating immersive lesson plans or plotlines for entertaining stories, she can be found playing in the russet desert of southern Utah with her four incredible – sometimes feral – kids and her handsome husband.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
I don’t really consider myself an artist. So it’s funny to hear that term. Of course, being an author is an art, but there are also technical aspects to it. That’s a debate for another time.
The most rewarding part of being an author is getting to be lost in my own mind. It’s strange when/where inspiration strikes, but it’s really fun to invent settings, worlds, scenarios, and characters. For example, I wrote a short story from the perspective of a stalker, and that was wild. A bit disturbing, but highly entertaining. Getting to place myself into a character’s mind and write about how they would react is crazy fun.
But the true reward is having the stories published and distributed to readers. I recently found out that a good friend of mine recommended an anthology, Crime and Culpability: A Jane Austen Mystery Anthology, that features one of my short stories to her book club. To say I was excited is an understatement. I squealed like a thirteen-year-old at a Taylor Swift concert. Another rewarding aspect of writing was when a colleague at Utah Tech University asked my permission to use one of my short stories as an example in her composition class. So now I’ve had people reading stories in book clubs and college classes. That makes me feel pretty extraordinary.
Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
Writing groups!!!!! Oh, man. I wish I had discovered the League of Utah Writers back in 2009 when I started writing fiction. Fortunately, I did discover them later. I think it was in 2018. Maybe.
Writing groups and beta readers are a vital resources. These people understand what it means to write and provide valuable feedback before the manuscript goes to an editor. Beyond professional expertise, writing groups offer community and motivation. Many people view writing as a solitary affair, and for the most part it is, but there comes a time when you aren’t cut out to be the judge of the story. For example, there are times I fall in love with a sentence so much that I don’t have the clarity to delete it so the story is better .This is a time when I need to relay on people who will tell me the truth about the weaknesses in my manuscript.
With my schedule of being a mom to four kids and an adjunct instructor at Utah Tech University, it’s hard for me to make it the group meetings, but I have collected people who are kind enough to read my stories before I submit them to an editor. It makes all the difference in my writing to get feedback on plot holes before I send my stories on to the next step in publication. Working with beta readers also improves my ability to accept feedback. Early in my career it was a personal insult to be told something was wrong with my story. After a couple of years, I learned feedback is simply another opportunity for me to improve my craft. Ultimately, I get to decide what to do with people’s advice, and how to apply it in a way that improves my story. The key to success with writing groups is to being humble enough to allow other people to have an opinion about what I write. Writing group advice is one way to enhance writing skill and also creative decision making. If you want to write, find a trusted group of people who will tell you what’s right and wrong with your manuscript.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sites.google.com/asu.edu/linnemarshportfolio/home
- Instagram: @Library4one
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LinneElizabeth
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/linneelizabethmarsh/
Image Credits
UMAC Utah Tech University LinkedIn page