Here I am dithering away trying to get myself back into the writing groove after a couple of intense weeks, in both my
Showing Kerovan
writing world and my “dog” world. Neither of which brought me huge immediate success, so it’s not like I can point to euphoria as a reason not to be writing up a storm. It’s not like I didn’t have a slew of great ideas and it’s not like I don’t think I can put those ideas on paper. Sometimes I thought so hard about what I was intending to write, I thought I’d already written many words of deathless prose. Yeah, not so much. And along comes Kristen Lamb with another Suck it Up, Buttercup post and danged if I didn’t give myself a Gibbs slap and get back to work.
What Are the Odds of Success? …Really?.
Kristen explains the true odds. It’s not me against the world of those who want to be published writers. Not even me against those who are more or less actively seeking publication. It’s me (or you, or your Aunt Harriet) against those assumptions or fears we’re hauling along with us every time we sit down to write. Or every time we finish a story and immediately think it’s not worth editing. Even worse when we try to compare our writing to anyone else’s. Because the reader is the final judge and there’s no telling what’s going to appeal to readers.
As long as I can keep offering them the best stories I can write, then I’m stacking that deck in my favor. And I can state I am the 5% of the 5% of the 5%…coming down to that small, intense group of writers who intend to become published and stay published. As Kristen says many times WE ARE NOT ALONE. We’re in this struggle together, and we’re winning. Yes, we are.
Mona Karel Author 
That’s exactly the lesson took way from Kristen’s post when I read it this morning, too,. I remember when I took a romantic suspense class in the late ’90s, and the teacher was a multi-published romance author who had just started retirement, I’ll never forget what she said the very first class: “I made a good living from writing, but when I was in college nine out of ten writing students were better writers than me. The reason I was successful at it as a career is that I kept my butt in the chair and kept finishing my writing projects. Regardless of what type of writing you want to do, that’s the formula for success–butt in the chair and finish.”
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It’s true of anything you think is worthwhile. Keep at it, keep learning and above all – I feel – enjoy the journey.
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