Thursday, February 19, 2009

On Perseverance

I don’t think I’ve ever been involved in any other activity that required more perseverance than the quest for publication. There are so many barriers you have to overcome, it hardly seems worth it. First, you have to write your book, which is no small task itself. Then comes revision, which can be even more difficult to face. At least when you wrote you book, you were in the honeymoon period; getting to know each other and being surprised by what you discover as your relationship progresses. Revision, though, is when the honeymoon is over and you are fighting each other at every step. Then comes the quest of finding an agent or publisher, which means dealing with rejection and long waits, which can drive you mad if you aren’t writing something else in the meantime.

I think the only way a writer can persevere is to keep writing, and to do so is critical. The hard part is maintaining your enthusiasm for writing new books while you wait for the submission process to play out with your existing manuscripts. This can be really hard to do, because waiting fuels that little voice in your head that tells you you're no good and you should just give up.

There are times when I wonder if I should just quit. But a person who is truly a writer at heart can’t simply quit. Even when I allow myself to take a week or two break, I get depressed, cranky and irritable. So, quitting is not an option, at least if I want to stay married.

So when I find myself getting depressed, I think of Hilari Bell, a wonderful and successful writer. I heard her speak on this very topic at a conference. In her case, she wrote 14 books before one of them was acquired for publication. After that, she sold most of the others in quick succession. Think of it as building inventory. The more you have in your inventory, the more you can sell.
Perseverance, while not my favorite word, is a necessary companion on the path to publication. As Samuel Johnson said over 200 years ago “Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.”

So don’t quit. Focus on the one part of the publication process you have control over and keep writing. If you persevere, the rest will follow.

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