Challenging Oneself
June 15th 2008 17:44
Part of being a writer is challenging yourself. You have to challenge yourself to write. You have to challenge yourself to, say, write a blog every day. Or a few pages of your novel. Or a short story. Even a poem.
But without challenging yourself to do your best and do it every single day, you're not going to make it anywhere. Oh hell, most of us aren't gonna make it anywhere ANYWAY. LIfe is just like that; it sucks. Plain and simple. But at least we can TRY.
Challenge ourselves to see just how far we can go. Even if we don't ever make a living off our writing, can we go places? Anywhere? Can we make a little extra money from it? Can we get something published and have at least some accomplishment to show off?
Let me tell you something. I did get published in a little mini-ezine nobody's EVER heard of called Sheroes. It took me a year and a half of trying and six, six years of writing. And that was just one poem. It wasn't even paid work.
You think you're going to get in any easier? You're not. Being a writer is all about the challenge, because we face plenty of it. Even the legendary J. K. Rowling collected something like 38 rejection slips. They pile up. Most of them are completely impersonal. Some of them actually give you a suggestion. Others say 'you fail.' (Or the infamous 'F.O.A.D.' rejections)
Writing can be fun. It's not a stable career choice and it's not easy to break into. It takes a lot of hard work and you could probably become a rocket scientist with more ease than you could a writer. Writing in your spare time is one thing and it's great-writing for a career is another thing altogether and it's TOUGH.
It really is tough to get anywhere in the publishing world-even into a small press. And I fully support indie presses. But you know, it takes a lot of hard work to write a good book and just as much, if not more, work to actually PUT it somewhere other than say, Lulu or something. A lot of hard work all to get it out to what will probably be a small number of people.
Are you willing to challenge yourself? Are you willing to go through with it?
Do you have what it takes?
But without challenging yourself to do your best and do it every single day, you're not going to make it anywhere. Oh hell, most of us aren't gonna make it anywhere ANYWAY. LIfe is just like that; it sucks. Plain and simple. But at least we can TRY.
Challenge ourselves to see just how far we can go. Even if we don't ever make a living off our writing, can we go places? Anywhere? Can we make a little extra money from it? Can we get something published and have at least some accomplishment to show off?
Let me tell you something. I did get published in a little mini-ezine nobody's EVER heard of called Sheroes. It took me a year and a half of trying and six, six years of writing. And that was just one poem. It wasn't even paid work.
You think you're going to get in any easier? You're not. Being a writer is all about the challenge, because we face plenty of it. Even the legendary J. K. Rowling collected something like 38 rejection slips. They pile up. Most of them are completely impersonal. Some of them actually give you a suggestion. Others say 'you fail.' (Or the infamous 'F.O.A.D.' rejections)
Writing can be fun. It's not a stable career choice and it's not easy to break into. It takes a lot of hard work and you could probably become a rocket scientist with more ease than you could a writer. Writing in your spare time is one thing and it's great-writing for a career is another thing altogether and it's TOUGH.
It really is tough to get anywhere in the publishing world-even into a small press. And I fully support indie presses. But you know, it takes a lot of hard work to write a good book and just as much, if not more, work to actually PUT it somewhere other than say, Lulu or something. A lot of hard work all to get it out to what will probably be a small number of people.
Are you willing to challenge yourself? Are you willing to go through with it?
Do you have what it takes?
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