by Peter Leavell, @PeterLeavell

It takes a determined person to write a book. Where do writers find determination?

Ah, Nietzsche. Did you know what philosophical firestorm you created when you said, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?” Moms and dads everywhere, in hundreds of languages, evoke this harsh but anti-altruistic phrase as a crowbar to pry children from their whiny strongholds.

It worked once. Parents still come together to discuss the day in 1952 when 15-year-old Ron Hucksbee, Dorshingshire, England, who would not eat his pickled beets. The boy was forced to take one bite. Sure that beets were the cause of the bubonic plague, Ron dug in his heels and sat at the dinner table with mouth clenched as his parents read him a riot act. While his mother answered the phone, it was then that Ron’s father called upon Nietzsche’s sentiment with hands on his hips and ice in his voice. “Eat your beets. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Ron’s mother called from the front room, “Ron, Martha is on the phone.”

Ron popped the beet into his mouth, swallowed, and shot into the front room.

Over 70 years later, experts still debate Ron’s real reason for listening to his parents.

Is it true, though? Does hardship make you stronger?

Perhaps.

The choice is yours.

Angela Duckworth, in her landmark book called Grit, points to a study by Steve Maier involving rats (because rats and humans are more alike than rats like to admit) that in some tests, the rats became weaker when faced with adversity.

You’ve met people who have shriveled under difficulty, where someone said something unkind and forty years later, are still fighting the demon. You also know people who you’re surprised to learn have stormed a beach during a World War and killed people in combat, and their leg was later shot off. As they walk away, yep, you can see a slight limp.

As Angela Duckworth points out, it’s not the trial that made them, but how they found a way out of their trial that made all the difference.

Writing can be a trial, a hardship. How you write under difficult conditions will shape you. I’ve discovered three points that make a successful author, and these truths are also pulled from Angela Duckworth’s book.

1. A Growth Mindset: Successful writers are eager to learn, always the student and never a master. Trials are opportunities to learn.
2. Optimism: Telling yourself it will be okay is a powerful tool to overcoming. Your mind believes what you tell it.
3. Encourage Others: Helping other authors with the first two points propels a successful writer to continue bettering self, acting like accountability partners.

Now, before you write, eat those beets—who cares if they caused the bubonic plague—and you can go write. Oh hey, there’s an agent on the line for you. (wow, you ate those beets quickly).

Dino Hunters: Discovery in the Desert

Siblings Josh and Abby Hunter don’t believe their parents’ death was an accident. After taking pictures of the most incredible find of the 1920’s—proof humans and dinosaurs lived together in the same time and place—desperate outlaws armed with tommy guns are on their tail! Only Josh and Abby know where the proof is hidden—in the canyons of Arizona’s desert. When an intruder searches Josh and Abby’s bags inside their new home, the two convince their uncle Dr. David Hunter to return to the canyon and find the pictures they’d hidden. But the outlaws are just as eager to find the proof before Josh and Abby. Can Josh use his super-smart brain to outfox the villains in time? Will Abby’s incredible physical abilities stop full-grown men? And will their uncle believe them?
Dino Hunters is an apologetics-adventure series aimed at the middle reader to help them trust the Bible from the very first verse.