Congrats to Gillian who won a copy of Robyn’s wonderful book! I’m also going to be running another giveaway on Wendnesday for a fellow Kiwi and Indulgence author, Michele de Winton so be sure to check in then for a chance to win her book too!
In the meantime, I’ve been watching the Olympics (and no not just the men’s swimming, though….phwoooarrrrr…hehe..) and all the commentary about the self belief and determination that athletes have to have etc, etc has got me thinking about that in conjunction with writing and getting published.
I mean, it really is an Olympic sport isn’t it?
If you’re exceptionally lucky you might win gold on your first go and that’s fantastic. But if you’re like the majority of us it’ll take a lot longer than that. In order to get that coveted medal – a contract – you have to have the kind of focus, determination and self belief that top athletes have.
I have never thought of myself as being a particularly determined or self confident sort. I’m actually full of the insecurities that most writers have, that my writing sucks and no one will ever want to read or even, God forbid, like it. But what I’ve always had is a healthy dislike of being told what to do, especially when someone tells me ‘no’. When someone tells me ‘no’, I just have to go out and make them change their minds. This made me hell on wheels when I was a kid (yeah, I was a whiner, no surprises there eh?) but it helped a lot when it came to getting published.
Last year I pretty much lost a lot of belief in my abilities as a writer. Every single day I thought about giving up – I kid you not. But dammit, I just couldn’t. I couldn’t let ‘no’ be the final word in my writing journey. I couldn’t let all the grief the rejections caused be for nothing. I had to keep whining to the grown-ups for my ice cream and I didn’t want to stop until they gave in and bought me one.
I leaned pretty heavily on my wonderful CPs in the interim and had lots and lots of moans about how hopeless I was. That was my way of dealing with the feelings of frustration. But that stubborn, whiny determination kept me writing, kept me learning my craft and kept me sending out stuff. And I guess, deep down, I did have enough belief in myself that I would do it eventually.
Sure enough, a couple of publishers gave in to my whining and now I have my ice cream. 😉
So what about you? What keeps you hanging in there on your writing journey? Is it the dream of winning gold? Or something else?