Invest in chocolate. Lots of it.
Find a reliable partner, friend, coach. Someone to keep you from slipping into deep depression when you revise 300 pages for the 8th time. Make sure you have an emergency number where you can reach them.
Find someone to back them up when you can’t reach them. When the agent with the perfect call for submissions lists your style and type of book and then responds to your query in five minutes that it isn’t what she’s looking for, make sure that your hotline support has twenty minutes to spare.
Drink something. Coffee is fine. Or tea. Or liquor. Water is for wussies.
But drink water too. You need to stay hydrated.
Listen to your mom on shit like that. But don’t send her the book no matter how many times she asks for it. Tell her to wait for publication.
Send the book back out after you revise it again. NO ONE IS GOING TO COME KNOCK ON YOUR DOOR AND ASK FOR IT! You are not Harper Lee. Besides, you don’t want to be in that pressure cooker either.
Let the published novelists encourage you and recommend you and bite your tongue when they post how rejection was so valuable for them as an emerging writer.
Embrace that label when it comes with a contest and prize. Reject it when you want to.
Keep sending to contests and journals. Surely some agents read those.
Find time to write. Even when you think you suck. Even when you hate it. Even when you are scared. Even when….. Yes. Then too.
Remember you are much more sane when you are writing. Call up those hotlines and have them remind you of that too.
The only cure is to write and submit.
The only cure is to write and submit.
The only cure is to write and submit.
Careful. You don’t want to sound like Jack Torrance from the Shining there.
Remember the good stuff. How it feels to rock a scene, unlock a character, find an ending, to print those pages. Read your books. Celebrate your work. Keep at it.
Yes. Keep at it.
Find a reliable partner, friend, coach. Someone to keep you from slipping into deep depression when you revise 300 pages for the 8th time. Make sure you have an emergency number where you can reach them.
Find someone to back them up when you can’t reach them. When the agent with the perfect call for submissions lists your style and type of book and then responds to your query in five minutes that it isn’t what she’s looking for, make sure that your hotline support has twenty minutes to spare.
Drink something. Coffee is fine. Or tea. Or liquor. Water is for wussies.
But drink water too. You need to stay hydrated.
Listen to your mom on shit like that. But don’t send her the book no matter how many times she asks for it. Tell her to wait for publication.
Send the book back out after you revise it again. NO ONE IS GOING TO COME KNOCK ON YOUR DOOR AND ASK FOR IT! You are not Harper Lee. Besides, you don’t want to be in that pressure cooker either.
Let the published novelists encourage you and recommend you and bite your tongue when they post how rejection was so valuable for them as an emerging writer.
Embrace that label when it comes with a contest and prize. Reject it when you want to.
Keep sending to contests and journals. Surely some agents read those.
Find time to write. Even when you think you suck. Even when you hate it. Even when you are scared. Even when….. Yes. Then too.
Remember you are much more sane when you are writing. Call up those hotlines and have them remind you of that too.
The only cure is to write and submit.
The only cure is to write and submit.
The only cure is to write and submit.
Careful. You don’t want to sound like Jack Torrance from the Shining there.
Remember the good stuff. How it feels to rock a scene, unlock a character, find an ending, to print those pages. Read your books. Celebrate your work. Keep at it.
Yes. Keep at it.
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