A writer’s routine: perseverance furthers
A reader asks:
“I’ve written my second novel and I just can’t seem to get it to the next step. I’m stuck in the querying process and it is quite the daunting process indeed.”
Daunting: yes.
Perseverance is key
Perseverance is the key to succeeding as a writer:
perseverance in continually learning about the craft,
perseverance in not being discouraged by rejection (and even learning from it),
perseverance in never giving up.
All of your questions (and more) will be answered in this excellent YouTube video interview by John Truby.
John Truby is a screenwriter, director and teacher of screenwriting. He has a very great deal to offer on the craft of story, so centrally important to novels as well as film.
In terms of plot craft, Truby’s book, Anatomy of Story, is excellent, but an even better book—at least to begin with, I think—is Save the Cat, by Blake Snyder. It is short and to-the-point.
Study the craft, revise, persevere.
(While you are waiting for responses to your second novel, you are working on your third novel: right?)
For more in this Writer’s Routine series:
A writer’s routine: how many … hours, days, words?
A writer’s routine: pantster or plotter?
A writer’s routine: how to get into a creative head space
A writer’s routine: evolving what works
A writer’s routine: where to write
A writer’s routine: on resisting an outline
A writer’s routine: how to be productive
A writer’s routine: on hunting & gathering
Image at the top from “A Most Delicate Art” at BibliOdyssey.
