Stand Up and Be Counted


Today, we look at staying on top of your writing game.

It's been a great week writing-wise - but it reminded me how fragile we are as humans - and how we've got to look after ourselves, even if all we aspire to is comfort and happiness.

I finished the first draft of a new novel Wednesday last. 

My partner's doing a proof of it now so that it's ready for publication next week.

Finishing a project brings up odd emotions. 

Nearing the end of the MS last Friday, I felt a curious wave of sadness - as though I was composing farewells to old friends I would miss dearly.

By Tuesday, and the completion of the final chapter 'wrap up', this feeling had morphed into elation at a job (I thought) well done. 

Riding this high, I did something I never do:

A complete copy edit in one go. 

Took me seven hours not stop Wednesday to go through and do a final proof before handing the MS over to Robyn.

I guess I deliberately wanted to get this done quickly so I could circumvent the next inevitable emotion: doubt.

You know, that horrible little gremlin that sneaks under the covers at the end of a project and says, "What were you thinking? Spending all those hours and days and weeks - for that?"

It's a nasty niggly voice and maybe I'm the only one who suffers from it, though I don't think so. 

My subscribers often complain of a similar gremlin.

Of course now, while I know my partner's reading the MS, I'm going through the "please say you like it" phase where any kind of criticism of my latest baby will hurt like a burning poker through the spleen.

Thankfully she's said some nice things so far - but then she would, wouldn't she?

Partners can be ruthless with their criticism, but at least Robyn's a multi-published author so I think I'm getting honest feedback!

Fingers crossed they're not just platitudes.

You need things like that to keep you getting your work out there.

You could be the next big thing but if nobody's reading your work, how will you ever find out?

It's too easy to reside in a comfort zone - unwilling to receive feedback that might shatter the dream.

But it has to be done. 

You can't rely on bumping into a fabulous contact in an elevator who can rocket you to fame and fortune.

You have to do what other writers have done since the beginning of tablet etching: submitting to publishers and agents and editors continually - and now, as I prefer, self-publishing on Amazon..

Fitzgerald famously said he could paper the walls of his writing room with rejections. 

That's how it is, and should be, for writers.

And I feel bad sometimes because I know I don't get nearly enough rejections to know I'm really trying hard enough.

There again, I have nearly forty books on Amazon and they sell all the time, every day, so I can't be that bad, right?

What about you? 

Are you publishing what you write?

Are you getting yourself out there?

I woke up this morning with a pain in my knee. Don't know what it is - probably nothing.

But it did remind me I'm only mortal and that one day I may not be in a position to keep writing, let alone submitting.

Get a move on, Rob, I thought, get a darn wiggle on...

Know what I mean?

Keep writing!

Your Success is My Concern
Rob Parnell's Writing Academy

THIS WEEK'S WRITER'S QUOTE:

"I'm astounded by people who take eighteen years to write something. That's how long it took that guy to write Madame Bovary, and was that ever on the best-seller list?" Sylvester Stallone

Comments

Andre said…
The submitting, anxiety, doubt, rejection cycle - the nightmare of a writer.
I have often wondered why mankind has such a problem with rejection. Perhaps we do not want to voluntarily get hurt?
So true what you say about the numbers game. No rejections equals no submissions or too few of them.
August 12, 2010 at 10:08 PM
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