Andrew Jack Writing

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Keep Going

Posted on | August 19, 2009 | 1 Comment

When you’re going through hell, keep going. – Winston Churchill

There’s a good time coming even if there’s a good time coming. – My Grandfather Dr Hamish Neale. He’s 95 and still going strong.

Do you wanna be a writer?*

Seriously, not just a part timer, or a hobbyist or a bitter malcontent?

Then the thing that’s going to get you there is persistence. Talent helps, so does luck, but you can’t change those things about yourself. The one thing the hard work/luck/talent triangle that you do anything about is the consistency and intensity of your work.

I guarantee you that right now, as you read this, a manuscript that would be this century’s greatest selling novel is moldering a drawer, or sitting on a hard drive, or floating around in someone’s head. It will never be published. It might never even be seen. This isn’t down to the evil of the publishing industry, or a global recession. This novel is going unloved (and unpublished) purely because the author gave up. This world changing piece of work, perhaps the next Harry Potter, just sits there because at some point the person that wrote it (or was going to write it) gave it all up because it was too hard.

I’ve been there.**

Up until recently I struggled to even finish a rough draft. Now that I’m onto a proper first draft and I’m having to fight to finish that too. If I quit, I’ll never know if I’ll be published, be able to quit my day job and write for a living. Not that I’m not having fun, because I’m happier now than I’ve ever been, because for once I’m keeping going. No matter how hard your book gets, don’t quit.

I know you imagined yourself signing books, travelling the country speaking to adoring fans and gathering groupies around you like a rock star. Perhaps you imagined yourself doing a Neil Gaiman and just being awesome all the time.***

Perhaps you will. But if you stop now while you’re an unknown call centre jockey (or student, gas station attendant or whatever) then you’ll never be able to leave your current life behind and get into the life you’ve been dreaming about. Writing is hard. We’re told it all the time by successful authors, but there’s that little bit of us that looks at these mega successful authors and thinks looks alright to me. While we can imagine ourselves having their success, but for some reason it’s so hard to put ourselves in their shoes before they were famous. We imagine that we’re the only ones going through the pain of crafting a novel. That we’re alone at our desk with a blank screen and a rumbling stomach.

You’re not alone, although I suspect the stomach thing is just me.

Keep writing, you still might never be published; you’ll still need some luck and some talent to go with the hard work. But no matter how lucky or how talented you are if you don’t keep writing and working at your writing, YOU WILL NEVER BE PUBLISHED. No groupies for you.

As I said, writing is hard. Keep going. The harder you work the less luck you’ll need and the more talent you’ll uncover.

* I took the swearing out and changed the words around, but I borrowed this line from Dana White, president of the UFC.

** A great many times I’ve been there.

*** You might imagine by this statement that any review I do of Mr Gaiman’s work might be a tad biased. You’d be right too.

Category: advice

Comments

One Response to “Keep Going”

  1. CarrieNo Gravatar
    August 20th, 2009 @ 9:15 am

    Ugh, but hard work is… HARD WORK! What a drag. Can’t I just magically become a Gaiman-esque genius?

    Wait, you mean HE had to work hard, too? DAMMIT!

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