Day 70 – Don’t Give Up

Because I’ve been at this writing thing for a few years now, I’ve seen a lot of my peers walk away from the business. I don’t blame them. It’s tough to make a living telling stories. Authors are just like any other business that opens in your neighborhood – most of them will fail. We don’t fail for the same reasons though. We fail because we bail too early.

We have much lower overhead than the restaurant on the corner of Main Street. If a book bombs, we can learn from it and write another without having to fire the staff and file for bankruptcy. That’s where so many early writers fail. They pack their bags and go home before they’ve allowed themselves to work through the early struggles of starting a business.

Don’t write one book and give up.

Don’t stop at two or three.

Keep going. Maybe you’ll eventually make a living at this. Maybe you won’t. But if you give up too early, you’ll never know. Just because your first books fails, doesn’t mean you don’t have what it takes.

I wrote and published five novels and novellas that didn’t sell worth a shit. Several short stories were sprinkled in there too. My sixth book was The Dark. That’s when I finally put a few coins back in the bank. It took six published books before I moved a meaningful amount of copies. Most people give up long before that.

I learned from my mistakes. My books needed better pacing, characters, and dialogue. I needed to adapt to the market. And it worked. If I’d packed it in after the third, fourth, or fifth books had bombed…

Getting that much work out there took a lot of writing time. That’s where a lot of us fall to the way side – we don’t prioritize writing. Myself included. I’ve slacked way too much. Putting at least an hour of ass-in-seat time each day will give an author a lot of books over the years. Yet most of us don’t do that. We make excuses or we grow bored or blame something external.

Or we give up.

Don’t. Not yet.

You have five more books to write.

Today, I climbed back in the saddle and managed 1344 words in the sixth book in The Hunger. The standing desk is amazing so far. I think it’s going to help me keep going when I get fatigued. Looking at my production numbers long term will be interesting.

I’m also podcasting on Final Guys tonight. Come join us at 8 PM EST as we talk about Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood.

See ya tomorrow.

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