Talk About Perseverance

 by Charlotte Hinger

Last Friday, Judith Briles interviewed mega-bestselling Colorado Authors’ Hall of Fame Inductee Kevin J. Anderson. In addition to being a famous science fiction writer, he stated that he had received 759 rejections. Amazing!

I am in awe of Michael and Kathy Gear who lived in a cabin with no running water for four years while they learned to write fiction based on their careers as archeologists. 

For I couple of years, I have mentored a young woman who is the most talented writer I've ever come across. Just out of high school when we started, she knows more about writing fiction in just one little brain cell than my poor mind has been able to cobble together in a lifetime. 

But she can't get an agent to read her material. That's despite a brilliant query letter. I'm so very anxious for her. But her response to the whole dismal situation has been to write the next book in this fantasy series, and then the next one. She will absolutely make it some day. She has everything it takes!

Just as our favorite detectives decipher cryptic clues and piece together a puzzle, authors must unravel the intricacies of the publishing world. It's a terrain rife with ambiguity, rejection, and uncertainty. Your manuscript may be the most brilliant piece of work, but initial rejections are not uncommon. Perseverance means understanding that a 'no' does not equate to a dead-end. The most important thing is to keep submitting.

In "Type M For Murder," we witness the detectives facing obstacles and setbacks in their pursuit of justice. Similarly, authors encounter rejection – a formidable adversary. But here's the secret weapon: the most celebrated authors have faced rejection, sometimes even multiple times.The lesson here is that every rejection can be a stepping stone towards acceptance, provided you persist.

Authors, like detectives, are often plagued by self-doubt. Our Type M'ers grapple with their own doubts and fears. But they press on because they know that perseverance can silence even the loudest doubts. 

The secret is to keep pushing forward.

Good Advice on Writing, Or, Easier Said Than Done

I love the musical theme that has arisen over the past couple of entries here at Type M. On Tuesday Rick noted that “There is a well-regarded truism about learning to play an instrument: you must put in 10,000 hours of practice to master it. I suspect this might be true in writing as well. In order to become really good at it, you must put in the hours...” When I teach writing classes one of my favorite things to tell my students is that you may study violin theory until you have a Ph.D., but if you don't practice until your fingers bleed, you'll never learn to play the violin.

I also relate to John's Hemingway quote that as time goes on, one doesn't become a better writer, one becomes a better editor. A Very Famous Author once gave me the best piece of writing advice I’ve heard in a good long while, and one that I need to take to heart. The most important thing is to get those words onto the page. You can fix it later. You can have the most brilliant idea every conceived on God’s green earth but what separates the men from the boys is the ability to get it down on paper in an effective way. “Don’t think too much,” she said, “Just keep writing.”

I always intend to write from beginning to end without stopping. If I get stuck or can’t quite figure out what to do next, I just write something, a filler, or leave a blank and plow onwards. Get that first draft done. By the time you write the last word, the story may have taken quite a turn from the way you thought it would go when you were writing the beginning.

But now you have something to work with. You can go back, if you need to, and craft the beginning to fit the end. You can cut out all the blather and redundancies that you put in there on the fly. You can tighten up that saggy middle and add another clue that will make things clearer.

I know all this very well and this is what I tell anyone who aspires to write a book. Yet sometimes I’m not so successful in taking my own advice. I often have Aline's problem of not being able to let go. I’m working on a manuscript right now, and I keep obsessing over one particular scene. I sit down every day to go, go, go from beginning to end, but for the past several days I keep going back and messing with it. Big mistake, and I know it. If I get the whole story down, the dinner scene will resolve itself. So today my fervent resolution is to take advice and not think so much. To hell with the dinner scene. Onward to the end!