Learning and Perservering
Everything that happens to you is, depending on your mindset, either an opportunity to give up or a chance to learn and get better. Nine years ago, I decided I would try to achieve my dream of being a writer. Last year, I published my debut novel, The Man Who Watched The World End. It was a very long road to get to that point. As I prepare for the release of my next novel, A Different Alchemy, I find myself reflecting over all the things I’ve learned.
I started out creating short stories. After revising each one a couple times, I would send them off to see if a magazine or literary journal would accept them for publication. But no matter how many times I revised them, the rejections kept pouring in. My short stories were turned down an astounding 190 times before the first one was accepted for publication. Yes, 190 times. But the important thing is that instead of giving up, I finally achieved my goal and a story was published. And I was only rejected sixteen more times before my second short story was published. For my third story, only five times. A lot of revising and learning occurred during that time. Lesson Learned #1: It takes a long time to become a good writer. A lot of the rejections could have been prevented if I had slowed down and focused on the writing instead of trying to get my stories published.
Only a fool would think the rejections would end there, though. Because while I was creating short stories, I was also looking for an agent to represent a book I was writing. I wrote a query letter and began to send it out. Most agents rejected it without comment. Every couple weeks I would notice some changes I could make to the query letter to make it better. No matter how many times I revised it, when I revisited it a couple weeks later, I would always find a few more things to tweak. Finally, with a finished query letter, I found an agent! Lesson Learned #2: No matter how many times you revise something, you need to put it aside and come back to it with fresh eyes. Only then will you see if it could be edited, and it shouldn’t be sent out until it’s absolutely perfect.
From the beginning, my agent was very straightforward: it was going to be difficult to find a publisher that would take a chance on an extremely bleak novel written by an unknown author. Although I was prepared for the day when each publisher passed on it, it was still a low point in my journey. The only option was to publish it myself. But I didn’t know anything about self-publishing, and I wasn’t good at selling myself. What was I going to do, though, give up on my dream? So I began to learn everything I could about Indie publishing. Lesson Learned #3: It’s not the amount of rejection you face or the amount of success you garner that matters, it’s your response to it that defines you.
It wasn’t easy getting my debut novel out to potential readers. In fact, it was pretty brutal at times. But instead of giving up, I did my best and kept learning from my mistakes. Along the way, my book garnered some incredible reviews. I can’t believe some of the things people have said about it on Amazon and GoodReads. It was even featured on The Science Fiction Spotlight and voted as one of GoodReads Top 10 ‘Most Interesting Books of 2013.’
And that brings me to today, getting ready to publish my second novel. After everything I learned during the publishing of The Man Who Watched The World End, I have no doubt that A Different Alchemy will be an even greater success. How could it not? After all, I’m still here, I’m still working toward my dream, and I’m still choosing to learn from adversity rather than letting it deter me from my goals.
I started out creating short stories. After revising each one a couple times, I would send them off to see if a magazine or literary journal would accept them for publication. But no matter how many times I revised them, the rejections kept pouring in. My short stories were turned down an astounding 190 times before the first one was accepted for publication. Yes, 190 times. But the important thing is that instead of giving up, I finally achieved my goal and a story was published. And I was only rejected sixteen more times before my second short story was published. For my third story, only five times. A lot of revising and learning occurred during that time. Lesson Learned #1: It takes a long time to become a good writer. A lot of the rejections could have been prevented if I had slowed down and focused on the writing instead of trying to get my stories published.
Only a fool would think the rejections would end there, though. Because while I was creating short stories, I was also looking for an agent to represent a book I was writing. I wrote a query letter and began to send it out. Most agents rejected it without comment. Every couple weeks I would notice some changes I could make to the query letter to make it better. No matter how many times I revised it, when I revisited it a couple weeks later, I would always find a few more things to tweak. Finally, with a finished query letter, I found an agent! Lesson Learned #2: No matter how many times you revise something, you need to put it aside and come back to it with fresh eyes. Only then will you see if it could be edited, and it shouldn’t be sent out until it’s absolutely perfect.
From the beginning, my agent was very straightforward: it was going to be difficult to find a publisher that would take a chance on an extremely bleak novel written by an unknown author. Although I was prepared for the day when each publisher passed on it, it was still a low point in my journey. The only option was to publish it myself. But I didn’t know anything about self-publishing, and I wasn’t good at selling myself. What was I going to do, though, give up on my dream? So I began to learn everything I could about Indie publishing. Lesson Learned #3: It’s not the amount of rejection you face or the amount of success you garner that matters, it’s your response to it that defines you.
It wasn’t easy getting my debut novel out to potential readers. In fact, it was pretty brutal at times. But instead of giving up, I did my best and kept learning from my mistakes. Along the way, my book garnered some incredible reviews. I can’t believe some of the things people have said about it on Amazon and GoodReads. It was even featured on The Science Fiction Spotlight and voted as one of GoodReads Top 10 ‘Most Interesting Books of 2013.’
And that brings me to today, getting ready to publish my second novel. After everything I learned during the publishing of The Man Who Watched The World End, I have no doubt that A Different Alchemy will be an even greater success. How could it not? After all, I’m still here, I’m still working toward my dream, and I’m still choosing to learn from adversity rather than letting it deter me from my goals.
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