Just Keep Going

There are moments in life that loom in the crosshairs - leaving you breathless with anticipation. Will I hit? Is my aim off? Instead of the bullseye, am I tracking for the mediocre alternative?

Sometimes the fear of failing overcomes the hope of success. Sometimes it feels safer to drop your bow, step back, pretend there is no target. I'm just fine right here, thanks.

I know that feeling. I lived there for a long time.

You see, in my late teens I took a shot at the publishing bullseye and missed the target completely. A single failure convinced me it wasn't worth trying anymore.

But then, almost nine years ago, I pulled my metaphorical crossbow out of the figurative attic where it had been collecting dust. I'd begun to hope again. And dream two very big dreams.

Last week, after several false starts, a few obstacles and a couple failures, the first of those dreams came true: My family has traveled half the globe and returned to Oregon. We're now living just a few miles from a bunch of the extended family, and a morning's drive from my parents. My son has been hanging out with his great-grandfather. And I'm cooking in my late grandmother's kitchen.

The first of my two big dreams has finally come true, and I've taken some big steps on the path to the second.

Last September I signed with an amazing agent. Brittany has already gotten my book in front of some big editors.

And now, we wait...

After all the years I've already been waiting, this last hurdle is hard to be patient about. It's hard to stand still, staring down the barrel at the thing I want, knowing I might take a shot and miss.

But if the last nine years have taught me anything, it's that failure only comes from lowering my weapon. When I keep my eye on the sight and keep pressing forward even when my arms are shaking, dreams can come true.

So, today I'm thanking God, because I'm one target down. Only one to go.

I didn't get the bullseye first time. So I made another arrow and I'm lining up to shoot again.

I'll let you know if I hit.

Your turn: What keeps you going, working towards your goals, even when it's really hard?

How to Watch Grass Grow

I've invited writer and short story-zine publisher, Emily Wenstrom, to guest post today. If you're struggling for focus or perserverance in your writing journey, you'll want to hear what she has to say:
 

Sometimes, as a writer—particularly an unpublished, aspiring writer—you get the feeling that you're not getting anywhere. You hustle, hustle, hustle, but never seem to make any real progress.

 

Writing can be slow work! I've been writing my manuscript for over two years, and still have a ways to go before it will be query-ready.

 

Authors who succeed know that persistence is one of the most critical elements to the writing process. But how do you keep from being discouraged?

 

Set bite-size goals. My goal? Simply to write 100 words a day. I'm a pretty slow writer. It used to frustrate me when I read author interviews about writers who get caught by an idea, write through the night, and resurface at the end with a complete first draft. I simply can't operate that way. But this small, reasonable goal keeps me steadily moving toward my completed manuscript. Every day I know I'm taking another baby step forward. Find your own comfortable pace, and then stick with it. Slow and steady wins the race.

 

Make it routine. I know that if I'm going to get to my manuscript every day, it's got to happen in the morning before other pressing needs demand my attention. So I wake up at 5 to make sure that I can. Pay attention to when you do your best work, and then arrange your schedule to take advantage of that time. Stick to it no matter what. It will get easier over time—habit is a powerful thing.

 

Celebrate the small victories. I have been know to dance in my bathrobe at 5:30 a.m. upon the completion of a chapter. Finding your own way to celebrate these small victories is critical to keeping up your morale and momentum. So go ahead, splurge on that fancy latte to celebrate a finished draft. Keep some dark chocolate on hand. Do what you gotta do.

 

Keep it fresh. For me, this takes many forms. It's as small as moving to a new scene when I get creatively blocked, and as big as taking occasional writing classes to sharpen my skills. I've built relationships with other writers with whom I trade critiques, and I've joined a writers group for additional support and community. These activities keep me focused, but more importantly, they keep me challenged and highly engaged.

 

Look back. When it feels like my best efforts barely make a dent toward reaching my goals, I look back and remember how far I've come. This includes checking my word count and thinking back to where I was a few months ago, reviewing earlier drafts to remind myself of how much my characters and plot have grown, etc. These flashbacks remind me that, even if it feels that I write slower than grass grows, my persistent efforts compile and DO in fact amount to something over time.

 

I've heard it said that writers are masochists—by our choice of hobby, we set ourselves up for a lifetime of agonizing hard work and long hours. But if you ask me, writers simply know better than most that some things are worth the hard work. Always keep an eye on the prize, and slowly but surely, you'll make your way there.

 

Lit addict, movie junkie, writer. Emily Wenstrom blogs about creativity in art and career at Creative Juicer. She is also the founder and editor of wordhaus, a short story zine built for the digital age and now seeking submissions.

Rejection & Fame

When I decided to do a series on rejection and perserverance, I specifically asked the lovely Anne Riley to do a guest post. Not just because she's lovely and funny and clearly a talented writer. But because I discovered Anne's blog when she wrote this insightful and uniquely awkward post.

I've since become an avid follower. Anne is one of the few bloggers who can intrigue me not only with her writing journey (which has had many ups and downs already - check out her "Journey to Publication" links near the bottom on the right of her blog!), but also with her personal stories about her day to day life.

True to form, Anne's taken an interesting approach to the rejections theme. She's told me all about the rejection of famous authors and books.  I found it insightful (and encouraging) to read. I'm sure you will too:

Dear lovely readers of Aimee’s blog,

I tried to think of something I could tell you about rejection that you haven’t heard before. I wanted to be eloquent, funny, and maybe make you cry just a little. But to be honest? I’ve got nothing. Rejection sucks. Big time. And unfortunately, it’s gonna happen if you’re pursuing publication.

While I can’t find the words I want to say about that, I can show you some facts that might make you feel better. Some of these I gathered from the internet; others I’ve heard directly from the author. So pull up a chair and brace yourself, kids, ‘cause these stats are CRAZY.

William Golding’s LORD OF THE FLIES was rejected by 20 publishers. One publisher called the book “an absurd and uninteresting fantasy which was rubbish and dull.”

Stephen King’s CARRIE was once rejected with this comment: “We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.” (Tell that to the YA dystopian bestsellers!)

JK Rowling’s HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE was rejected by a dozen publishing houses, including some of the big ones like Penguin and HarperCollins. Bloomsbury only took it on because the CEO’s 8-year-old daughter begged her father to publish it.

John Grisham’s A TIME TO KILL was rejected by 16 agents and a dozen publishing houses before it was finally bought and printed.

Kiersten White, author of the NYT bestselling PARANORMALCY series, wasn’t able to sell the first book she went on submission with . . . at all.

One of Rudyard Kipling’s short stories was rejected with this comment by an editor: “I’m sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.”

Madeleine L’Engle’s A WRINKLE IN TIME was rejected by 26 publishers before going into print.

Margaret Mitchell’s GONE WITH THE WIND was rejected 38 times before being published.

Judy Blume has said that she received “nothing but rejections for two years.” In fact, here’s how the process went in her own words: “I would go to sleep at night feeling that I'd never be published. But I'd wake up in the morning convinced I would be. Each time I sent a story or book off to a publisher, I would sit down and begin something new. I was learning more with each effort. I was determined. Determination and hard work are as important as talent.”

Meg Cabot’s THE PRINCESS DIARIES was rejected by 17 publishers.

Beth Revis, author of the NYT bestseller ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, wrote ten books in ten years—none of which sold. ATU was her final attempt.

And finally, Kathryn Stockett, author of THE HELP, says that she stopped counting after 60 agent rejections.

Now. If THEY can do it, why can’t you?

Anne Riley is an author of young adult fiction disguised as a high school Spanish teacher. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama with her very attractive husband (some say he resembles Matt Damon) and her small, giggly daughter (otherwise known as "Baby Girl").

Her first book THE CLEARING is available in paperback here, on Kindle here and several other platforms linked from here.

Anne's Website:  http://annerileybooks.com/
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/#!/AnneRiley

Believe It: Rejections are a Measure of Your Success

When I talked to you guys about guest posting, I never imagined the response I'd get! Thanks to everyone who came forward (I've kept the list so those who didn't get a shot this time can drop in another time).

Today is the first guest post in my Rejections and Perserverance series. Her name's Margaret and she's got some interesting things to say about how that pile of query rejections in your drawer can be a gauge of your success as a writer. I think she's absolutely right. So take note!


Your Rejections Are a Measure of Your Success
By Margaret Telsch-Williams

Source

Rejections come from everywhere: they arrive in the mailbox, they shoot into our inboxes when we aren’t looking and when we’re checking it every five minutes. They span contests and grants, book publishers and magazines. We’re writers. We get rejections.

By now we should be used to it, right? We should shrug these things off, tack them on a nail on the wall a la Stephen King, or shout to someone in the next room, “I got another one. I’m getting closer.”

But we don’t. Instead we feel depressed, sometimes we cry, or we may consider throwing in the writing towel. We read those words over and over which often include a variety of letting-you-down-easys: a pleasure reading your work, thanks for submitting, not for us at this time, came close, I regret to inform you, and unfortunately because of the volume of submissions, blah, blah, blah.

If you’re lucky some vastly attractive person is sitting nearby to rub your shoulders, bring you coffee or wine, and tell you, “It’s okay.” I used to let the rejection simmer inside of me for a day before I even mentioned it, and for what?

The problem is that we’re programmed to believe rejections of our work are somehow also rejections of ourselves, but this simply isn’t true. The “yes” or “no” we receive is a black and white reflection of our work, but the rejection itself carries the gray area of information for us. In this gray area, you have the ability to swim endlessly and believe it or not, rejections are a measure of your success.

Yeah, maybe it isn’t that story’s time or maybe that story isn’t what they want, but the rejection can lead you forward even when it seems like it’s jamming on the brakes. Rejections show you your place on the scale between amateur and genius. There are better writers out there than you and there are worse writers out there, and your rejections hopefully say you fall in the middle.

The middle, by the way, is filled with great company.

Although you may want to trash every rejection that comes your way, keep your rejections in the order they arrive. If there’s no date, add it. If there’s no title of the piece you sent to get the rejection, put it in. Make each rejection tell you as much as possible about the submission and store them in a folder either real or virtual in the order they came to you. Rejections are not, I repeat, are not absolute and permanent banishment into the writer dungeon. Don’t obsess about this folder!

Now, you dust that story/novel/query off, you give it a read through, fix errors, make changes, do a line edit, etc., and submit the piece somewhere else. Continue this process, over and over, and keep the rejections (and acceptances) coming.

Let a few months go by, maybe a year, as you work until you have a good stack going. Then look through them. There are different levels of rejections from dreaded pre-printed form letters, to decent form letters with small notes written on them, to amazing personalized rejections and rose scented rejections which encourage you to submit again.

These rejection levels are your measurements. Compare the dates of your rejections, the submissions you used, and over time you should be able to see a healthy trend which climbs the ladder. The longer you stay in the game, the more small notes and personalized rejections you should start to see which eventually lead to acceptance.

If you’re not getting anything but form letters time after time, then your rejections are telling you to work a little harder, revise more, change your cover letter, or research where you’re sending your work better to make sure you’re sending to the right places.

To make the rejection ruler work for you, you collect your rejections, you see where you stand, and you work harder. The more your rejections climb, the more successes you can expect in the future.

(FYI: If you're not interested in working harder, then you might as well step into another profession, like neurosurgery.)

Hard work is what writing is about. Rejection is what it's about. Your rejections are trying to tell you if you’re getting better or not, so you’d better listen to what they have to say.

Margaret is a freelance writer by day and a fiction writer by night. When she’snot writing home & garden or entertainment information, she’s murderingfictional people, tearing families apart, and casting spells. She has anundergraduate degree in taking the comma out, and a graduate degree in puttingthe comma back in.

You can find her at:

Blog: http://www.mtelschwilliams.blogspot.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/mtelschwilliams
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/profile.php?id=100000048439494