A Plug for Persistence

I often say that publishing a first book is like getting your master's degree. You've got to build up the skills of storytelling, word crafting, description, grammar, plotting, outlining, and don't forget the actual matter of disciplining yourself to complete a long term project. Revising, editing, submitting, revising again, scrapping a project and moving on to something better.

Writing is hard work. But I found an interesting observation from Betsy Lerner in her book, The Forest for the Trees (Revised and Updated): An Editor's Advice to Writers. She pointed out that the only real difference between writers that succeed and writers that don't was this, writers who don't succeed give up. Writers who succeed keep writing.

To be fair, she was talking about a specific type of writer (She breaks the writers she's worked with into six groups. This group was the ambivalent writer...that's the group I feel most at home with.). But I think it's safe to say that if you want to be a writer then you can develop the skills that will get you published. And if you keep working (remember that w word) then you'll likely get published again.

So keep writing. And check her book out. You might find something useful.