Peg Herring's Blog - Posts Tagged "persistence"
Stumbling Along Together
Creating a career in writing is a little like walking through a thick, dark forest at one a.m. on a cloudy night. Your feet find the right path for a while sometimes, but you bounce into tree trunks, get scraped by branches, trip over rocks, and often end up back where you started because you didn't know where you were going.
Let's examine my allegory. Tree trunks might symbolize rejections, that hard thump we get when someone with power over our future says, "Not for us." We reel backward a few steps. We get angry. "WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?" we shriek. "Is it bad? Is it not marketable? Is it too much like (or unlike) the latest bestseller?" Then the pain sets in. Ow! That hurt. The tree trunk is unmarred, unreactive.
Then there are the branches that reach out into the path. They don't stop us, but we have to either duck them, go around them, or let them scrape off some hide as we pass. Nasty comments from readers and reviewers. Agents who are too busy to answer our emails or help us plan our careers. Friends who ask why our books aren't on the bestseller lists and why Oprah has never let our names cross her lips.
Rocks that rise up from below and wait to trip us are the things that slow us down: should we write the next chapter or answer those emails that promise better promotion? Being asked to judge a writing contest contributes to a writer's renown, but is the time it's going to take worth losing all those hours? And it's only lunch with a friend! What can a few hours off hurt?
And then there's the aimless wandering. We think we know where we need to go, but so often the paths split, circle back on themselves, or dead end. We spend so much time going the wrong way, and it simply can't be avoided because it's so darned dark out here!
Some of us make it. We don't know how, really, but persistence is a big part of it. One eye is watering from that branch that slapped us in the face, and it took a lot longer than we thought it would, but we reach our goal.
And what do we do? We plunge back into the woods, in the dark, unsure how far ahead that next stopping place is. After all, it's only four a.m. now. There's bound to be a sunrise somewhere up ahead.
Let's examine my allegory. Tree trunks might symbolize rejections, that hard thump we get when someone with power over our future says, "Not for us." We reel backward a few steps. We get angry. "WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?" we shriek. "Is it bad? Is it not marketable? Is it too much like (or unlike) the latest bestseller?" Then the pain sets in. Ow! That hurt. The tree trunk is unmarred, unreactive.
Then there are the branches that reach out into the path. They don't stop us, but we have to either duck them, go around them, or let them scrape off some hide as we pass. Nasty comments from readers and reviewers. Agents who are too busy to answer our emails or help us plan our careers. Friends who ask why our books aren't on the bestseller lists and why Oprah has never let our names cross her lips.
Rocks that rise up from below and wait to trip us are the things that slow us down: should we write the next chapter or answer those emails that promise better promotion? Being asked to judge a writing contest contributes to a writer's renown, but is the time it's going to take worth losing all those hours? And it's only lunch with a friend! What can a few hours off hurt?
And then there's the aimless wandering. We think we know where we need to go, but so often the paths split, circle back on themselves, or dead end. We spend so much time going the wrong way, and it simply can't be avoided because it's so darned dark out here!
Some of us make it. We don't know how, really, but persistence is a big part of it. One eye is watering from that branch that slapped us in the face, and it took a lot longer than we thought it would, but we reach our goal.
And what do we do? We plunge back into the woods, in the dark, unsure how far ahead that next stopping place is. After all, it's only four a.m. now. There's bound to be a sunrise somewhere up ahead.
