Publication as an Olympic Sport

Congrats to Gillian who won a copy of Robyn's wonderful book! I'm also going to be running another giveaway on Wendnesday for a fellow Kiwi and Indulgence author, Michele de Winton so be sure to check in then for a chance to win her book too!

In the meantime, I've been watching the Olympics (and no not just the men's swimming, though....phwoooarrrrr...hehe..) and all the commentary about the self belief and determination that athletes have to have etc, etc has got me thinking about that in conjunction with writing and getting published.

I mean, it really is an Olympic sport isn't it?

If you're exceptionally  lucky you might win gold on your first go and that's fantastic. But if you're like the majority of us it'll take a lot longer than that.  In order to get that coveted medal - a contract - you have to have the kind of focus, determination and self belief that top athletes have.

I have never thought of myself as being a particularly determined or self confident sort. I'm actually full of the insecurities that most writers have, that my writing sucks and no one will ever want to read or even, God forbid, like it. But what I've always had is a healthy dislike of being told what to do, especially when someone tells me 'no'. When someone tells me 'no', I just have to go out and make them change their minds. This made me hell on wheels when I was a kid (yeah, I was a whiner, no surprises there eh?) but it helped a lot when it came to getting published.

Last year I pretty much lost a lot of belief in my abilities as a writer. Every single day I thought about giving up - I kid you not. But dammit, I just couldn't. I couldn't let 'no' be the final word in my writing journey. I couldn't let all the grief the rejections caused be for nothing. I had to keep whining to the grown-ups for my ice cream and I didn't want to stop until they gave in and bought me one.

I leaned pretty heavily on my wonderful CPs in the interim and had lots and lots of moans about how hopeless I was. That was my way of dealing with the feelings of frustration. But that stubborn, whiny  determination kept me writing, kept me learning my craft and kept me sending out stuff. And I guess, deep down, I did have enough belief in myself that I would do it eventually. 

Sure enough, a couple of publishers gave in to my whining and now I have my ice cream. ;-)

So what about you? What keeps you hanging in there on your writing journey? Is it the dream of winning gold? Or something else?

Treadmill Blues

I wish this was a post about running on an actual treadmill and burning actual calories and getting awesomely fit. But it's not. It's about running on an analogous treadmill, where no calories are burned and nothing actually happens, you just keep running and running and not going anywhere.

Yep, you guessed it, this is a moan post. To be fair I haven't done one for a while so, y'know, I'm feeling entitled.

Possibly this could also be post-sub blues, or beginning blues, or the waiting blues. Or the NTAI blues. Or the dammit-I-will-never-be-a-rockstar blues. Or the kind of blues you have when you know that the chance of chocolate occuring in the next couple of hours is zero to nil.

But no. It's the kind of blues you have where you've subbed everything everywhere. You're keeping ahead of the rejections by soldiering on with the next story. You've done everything you possibly can to keep the momentum going. But you're still stuck in the same place as you were two months ago. Three months ago. Six months ago. A year ago.

Still nowhere in other words.

I'm sure it'll pass. At least, sometime something will happen and then I'll either be going up or down. I hope it's up, though realistically, given my track record, it's more likely to be down. But until something does, I'm stuck on the treadmill, running and running and going nowhere.

I guess at least my Pinterest boards give me something pretty look at while I'm here.

Anyone else got the treadmill blues? Or is it more the realisation that you'll never be a rockstar blues? :-)