A lot of people can’t imagine writing a thousand words on purpose unless directed by school or work. Others can’t understand where all the ideas come from, the amazing fantasies, the intricate crimes, the heroes and the villains. Then you have grammar, marketing, self-promotion, and editing to consider. Writing is not a career choice for the timid, but for all of the difficulties these things present, they aren’t the hardest part.
The hardest part of being a writer is to persevere. Seriously. You start out with a story, or some poetry, or if you are truly ambitious – a book. You are confronted with the world of publishing, editors, markets, readers and critics, and you cast your work into their midst. This is where a lot of careers founder on the reef. You just can’t wait around for something to happen.
My career contains some of the best examples I can imagine, so I’ll share a couple. When I started out I wrote a lot of short stories. The idea, as I understood it, was to keep at least a dozen stories in circulation, something on everyone’s desk at all times. At first, though I was dogged in my approach, this had only mixed results.
Then I discovered that, as I got rejected, revised the stories, and sent them back out, that the odds increased. I bet I sent two dozen stories to both Cemetery Dance magazine and Deathrealm magazine in the early days. I was always “close but not quite” but I didn’t let it stop me. Eventually, I sold stories to both editors, after asking again and again what they hoped to see and pounding on their walls with my prose. In fact, both of these magazines printed at least one story they’d previously rejected but couldn’t get out of their head – and in the case of Cemetery Dance, that story ended up being reprinted in “The Best of Cemetery Dance,” which was my first appearance alongside Stephen King! I guess it’s significant that when “The Best of Deathrealm” came out, I was in that as well.
The perseverance paid off. You can’t sit back and worry about the work you’ve done; you always have to be focused on the work you are doing. You market, sure, and you promote, and you submit your work, but all that time, you write. You never let yourself think any thought other than that you need to get through what you are working on and on to the next project. The publishing world is extremely diverse, and it changes quickly. You can’t assume that a project not selling immediately won’t be the next hot thing, so you keep them visible, and you work on something new, and you try not to go insane from the waiting.
My novel writing career has mirrored my experience with short stories. Early on I met one of the editors at White Wolf Publishing. I began systematically pummeling him with ideas. Eventually, I sold them six novels, often because I made myself available and kept pounding away. It didn’t happen overnight, but eventually it did happen, and through all of that … I was writing.
I’m writing now…at least three or four projects at any given time. Diversity and perseverance pay off in this business, as well as visibility and luck. If you are in it for the long haul, remember it’s the act of writing that fascinates and compels you – publishing is almost a side-effect. It’s a necessary outlet, of course, but you get nowhere unless you are moving.
Thanks to Susan Hendersen over at Litpark – where the question of the week is how perseverance has affected your writing – for suggesting I blog this on top of my comments there.
Written by David Wilson - Visit WebsiteFollow me on Twitter
Thanks… i love seeing what other authours have had to go through, this is the year i get my submissions out there and i start wading into the grand melee. So thanks for the insight.
Kurt~
Hey, no problem man. I actually find it refreshing to go back and look at how things happened, and why…and I love to share, as you know.
David
Great post. Perseverance is a must. Belief in yourself helps too. As well as enjoying the process. John Steinbeck was agonizing in his journal about a project he was writing and stated that no matter how hard he tried to improve it, it balked but it was the best he could do. He was speaking of, “The Grapes of Wrath.”
I always love the projects I’m working on, but I know that fear, at times, that you aren’t doing it justice…that kept me from lengthening “A Candle Lit in Sunlight” into “This is My Blood” for several years.
The hard thing is finding an agent and some publishers to share your enthusiasm.
David
I’m here via LitPark…
I always question the writers who are persistent with their work but nothing else. They query 5 agents and then stop. They don’t follow through on marketing. I always think, “If only…” which is something I never want to think about myself. I want to tackle all the if’s in life so therefore with writing and everything else, I live completely without regret, but with passion, hope and drive.
This preservance I feel comes mostly from within. Without going in that route, you’ll never know what challenges you’re going to face. The ability to carry on with projects that you enjoy expressing yourself in, is the greatest passion that man has to offer, alongside it being the most natural skill of all. I too, enjoy acknowleding why things work the way they do, and for me it is always refreshingly enthusiastic too. Great blog.
Amy,
You have to persevere in both arenas. You have to keep putting your work in front of those who can bring it to the world – publishers and editors – and you have to keep writing and working no matter what is going on in that first arena…keep the faith in other words. Thanks for reading!
David
Ana,
Thank you. If you read much by or about me you’ll find that I harp on the passion thing all the time. If you don’t write what hurts, what inspires, or what keeps you up at night, you are just pedaling a bike without a chain….thanks for stopping by!
David
Thank you for this post David.
You are absolutely right of course. Getting published is very much a strategic game and finding what the others want is the trickiest – yet most rewarding – task of all. I suspect a great deal of stories get rejected not because they are bad (although plenty do fall in that category too) but because they are addressed to the wrong market.
[...] I can’t tell you how moved I was by your answers this week on how and why you endure, and was glad to see David Niall Wilson continue the discussion over on his blog with a post entitled Perseverance: Writing is NOT the Hardest Part. [...]
Other than the rare Mr. Paolini, I seldom hear stories about writers who sign on with a HarperCollins and/or a Warner Bros right out of high school.
In order to persevere, I need to hear stories about writers who sent in 1000000000000 MSS and finally sold one for .05 cents a word to a magazine nobody ever heard of. That’s the commonality present for most of us.
Susan mentioned the need to hang in there while our nonwriter friends are asking why we’re not in the latest issue of Atlantic or in the B&N window. We also have to hang in there while reading all the Twitter and Facebook notes about other writers heading off to gala openings while our MSS are still in the limbo of submissions to Agent X and Publisher Y.
Thanks for your post. It helps us stay focused.
Malcolm