by Steve Laube
Preparation is awfully important if you are planning to climb Mt. Everest. If you show up in a t-shirt, shorts, flip flops, and a sack lunch it is likely you will perish during the ascent.
The same idea applies to the writer. You must do the hard work ahead of time to achieve success.
There are No Shortcuts
Despite numerous methods for efficiency, there is still no shortcut in writing a great book. It is rare for anyone to slap together a masterpiece in a few short days. Don’t think we can’t tell the difference!
There are No Substitutes
This is your work, not your neighbors. Yes, you may use the help of a Book Doctor, a freelancer, a critique group, or even a collaborator, but it is still your work. It is your name that goes on the cover.
There are No Guarantees
You could put in the 10,000 hours of practice Malcom Gladwell says is the minimum time before you are ready. You could come up with a great idea. But it still doesn’t guarantee that it is going to break through. Someone else may have just released a book too similar to yours. The execution of your craft may need another 10,000 hours before it is good enough. Many writers fail at this stage because they get a sense of entitlement and are frustrated with rejections.
John Creasy the English novelist kept at it. He kept getting rejected so decided to use pen names to create a new identity. Fourteen of them! Collectively he received 753 rejection letters. But he didn’t give up. His 754th became the first of his 564 published books. What if he had quit at the 700th rejection?
The bottom line is to take the time necessary to truly excel. It will be worth it in the end.
Preparation is key, I believe, but so are the patience and discipline that go along with that. http://bit.ly/s9mpzU
All are related. Sometimes it feels like a struggle to climb that literary Mt. Everest and most times it feels like a sisyphean endeavor.
But, I always ask myself, if I don’t apply preparation, patience and discipline, what’s the alternative? No writing of worth, no chance of publication.
Very few artists in any genre explode onto the stage of success with their first or second try. Art requires time. If Michelangelo had chipped his statues out of marble and then skipped the countless hours of polishing needed to perfect them, the world would consider him a hack, another wannabe.
I’m reminded of the woman who gushed to a concert violinist, “I’d give 30 years of my life if I could play like that!”
“Madame,” he replied, “that’s exactly what I did.”
How funny…I was just talking with my husband about this last night. I know that I’ll receive rejections–know it because everyone does–but then he asked me how many I’d stand before giving up. I said I wasn’t sure that I could ever give up my dream, though it may be delayed for awhile.
Thanks, as always, for helping us to put things in perspective. There could be a number of reasons for a rejection, not all of which have anything to do with our worth or even talent as a writer.
This is a message we need to hear over and over again. Thank you, Steve.
If it was ever left to me I would have long given up. Seven years ago, in the midst of a lifeclass crisis, I felt a call to write and trusted God in that.
What often encouraged me was the way that God prepared souls like David or Abraham or Moses. He pushed them back for decades, hemming them in from all sides, until the timing was ideal. However, when their preparation met the opportunity that only God could have forseen, the timing shook history.
There just is no short cut. We live in an instant world that demands instant gratification, but God is unmoved by any of that. All we can do is follow, generally without any assurance of a specific outcome, for this is a walk of faith. However, the wait will define the difference between a body of work that is just another nondescript addition to a growing junkheap of information – or – something that will make a difference.
I do know that every time I thought my seminal work was done, God added more, extending a basic concept into a robust thesis. He alone knew how much work had yet to be done, but looking back now, I can honestly say it was worthwhile.