Playing the Part: Fake it ’til you make it!

Fake it ’til you make it is a common piece of advice for anything you want to achieve in life. While on the surface, it might sound a bit disingenuous, there is a lot of truth to this statement. As a teacher, I had to fake it until I knew what I doing. Had I not, the kids (and their parents) would have eaten me alive. Likewise, when it comes to writing, platform creation is the current buzz.

However, for all of us yet-to-be-published authors out there, we know platform creation comes with a little faking. After all, we have to create the image of the author (and an audience) before our books even have real spines. I knew I had achieved some success in this endeavor when a friend introduced me at a party as a “real writer” again and again. While I protested a bit at first, she was adamant I had earned this title. At that moment I realized I had successfully played the part.

So, now it’s time to take this adage to the next level as I prepare to query (last round) and possibly self-publish Expecting Happiness. Some of the most common advice in platform creation is to make sure you present a professional and unified picture of yourself across all of your pages, (blog, Facebook, Twitter, Gravatar etc.). It’s important to make sure you pick just one or two photos as many readers will not know you well enough to identify you in different settings without these cues.

As such, I enlisted the help of a local blog friend and talented photographer to take some head shots to help me polish my presentation. While I’m going to hold off on picking which photo (or two) to use until after I get back from my trip, I wanted to give her a shout out for her photographic talent. If you live in the Sacramento area and need photos for any occasion, head over to Urke Photography’s blog. Likewise, Ashley also runs her own blog empire over at Domestic Fashionista (and has been my delightful inspiration for Thankfulness Thursdays). Stop by, say hi, tell her I sent you!

And, most importantly– keep on playing the part until it becomes a part of you! Any secrets you want to share on how you’ve faked it to make it?

Photo credit: Urke Photography

9 thoughts on “Playing the Part: Fake it ’til you make it!”

Ashley Urke | Domestic Fashionista says:

July 1, 2013 at 11:55 am

Girl, you are not faking it. You are doing it! Happy to be a part of the process with you! You ARE a writer. And I suppose I too should take my own advice. I too AM a blogger and a housewife. Not just a nanny and photographer (the more socially acceptable “career” choices and the greater money makers at this point making it seem like a more acceptable job). Yet for whatever reason, those things we truly feel like we are and are called to do are so hard to admit. Why is that? May this be one step closer to building that confidence of knowing just how amazing you are!!!

oliviaobryon says:

July 1, 2013 at 2:55 pm

Thanks Ashley– and, I agree, it’s all part of the confidence-building process. I actually heard the fake it ’til you make it advice in some sort of commencement speech going around the internet and it really hit home for me. The only way we ever achieve our dreams is by going for them and acting like we know what we’re doing, even when sometimes we don’t! I see it as a good thing 🙂 And, a pretty darn exciting thing as we learn and grow and become the person we wanted to be. I love that our lessons overlap. You are definitely a blogger and a housewife (and a photographer and a nanny)! And– my guess is that we truly are afraid of our own success on some level, like that famous Maryanne Williamson quote… It’s scarier to fail at what we love than the things we only like. Thanks for the encouragement on my journey!

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