Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Persistence

Persistence

Yesterday evening I fired up the flight simulator on my computer. It is like a video game that lets you fly different types of RC model airplanes and get a feel for their handling characteristics. I found one that is exactly like the trainer I am flying with the flight Instructor at the field. I found it difficult to fly and will continue to practice on it a little bit every day
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Writing a Novel shares a similar degree of difficulty and is something a writer has to practice every day. Anyone familiar with trying to get published quickly discovers how hard a threshold it is to break through and like learning to fly an RC model, there are frequent “Crash and Burn” experiences. The writer needs to keep reminding themselves that they can succeed and need to simply keep after the goal of getting published.

Several years ago I wrote a stage play that kept getting rejected. My goal was to have it produced by a college or university so I could see it come alive on the stage. I still feel it is a production quality work and in several instances I was told it just barely missed the cutoff for selection. I still send it out each year for consideration and who knows, maybe someday I’ll get a letter inviting me to see it enacted in a real theater.

The point is that you have to keep yourself in contention. A writer needs to always have something “working” out there in the publication selection process. You can’t win if you aren’t out there on the field of contention. Just submit and then turn your attention to writing something new. Don’t wait with baited breath, but instead try and forget it is even out there in the mix. If you get a rejection shrug, learn what you can, submit something else or resubmit the same work over again
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I know you have heard this over and over again but it’s true and bears repeating. You know deep down if your work is professional quality and if that recognition does not come immediately then what the heck! Nobody said getting a publishing contract was easy.