Advice for aspiring writers: Part 1

Rejection is a big part of publishing. The honest truth is that there are some really amazing books out there that never sell. I've read some of them. Being the innately lazy person that I am, the prospect of putting months of my life into a project that will probably never go anywhere is depressing at best. But I have two of them. I wrote them before I wrote Personal Demons and they taught me to write. The cold hard truth is, there's no way to know if a novel is good enough until it's completed, revised, revised again, and polished to a high shine. There are no guarantees.

So, does that mean you should give up? Yep! Because that's what every writer of every book you see on the shelves at your local bookstore did. (NOT!!)

The real answer: If you love to write, you should write. If you used to love to write, but don't anymore, then maybe you should stop. We've probably all read books by our favorite New York Times bestselling authors that we thought weren't quite up to par. When a writer isn't loving what they're doing anymore, it shows. It doesn't matter if they're published or not.

The inspiration for this post was a conversation I had with an aspiring writer who said she was so sick of rejection that she thought she might stop writing. The automatic response that sprung to my lips was, "Don't give up!" But when I thought about it, I realized that's not what I'd want to hear if I'd just said that to another author. So, what I told her was, "If you love to write, do it. If you don't, stop." It's the most honest thing I could think to say.

Tomorrow, I'll post my specific tips for aspiring writers, which includes everything from the writing process to querying agents. And, speaking of agents, I've had one for two years next month, so to celebrate, starting tomorrow, I'll be giving away one first chapter and query critique a week between now and September 23rd (my 2 year signing anniversary). So if you do love writing, and you're going to keep doing it, check back tomorrow for my pearls of wisdom and to enter for your chance at a critique by yours truly =)