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A Chicago area girl born and bred, I've lived in Mississippi, Montana, Michigan, and...ten years in the wilds of northeastern Indiana, where I fought the noble fight as a book editor. Now, I'm back in Illinois once more...for good. (At least I intend to make it that way!)
Showing posts with label staying with it. Show all posts
Showing posts with label staying with it. Show all posts

Thursday, January 21, 2010

In the Throes....

...of finally getting back "in the saddle" of writing again.  Yes, I'm working to polish a submission for an agent, and yes, technically it's old work.

Only not really.

Recently, I read a tale of persistence about a writer who worked on a book for years. Apparently MANY years. She wrote, and submitted, and got rejected, and revised, and sent to contests, and had critques, and submitted, and got more rejections...and so on and so forth. During this time period, many, many people told her to give up the dream entirely. She clearly wasn't making it, so why keep banging her head against the wall? Others told her she didn't have to give up on the dream of writing, just try on a more "realistic" one; she needed to put away the book with so many miles on it, and write something else entirely.

But this advice, she ignored.

She kept working on this book of her heart. The story she needed to tell. The book only she could write.

And eventually, it did sell. I wish I could remember if it sold for some fabulous sum of money, or got her fame and fortune, or put her on Oprah, or any of the rest. But it doesn't matter that I didn't remember that, because the kind, or degree, of success truly wasn't the point of this particular story. This particular story was about whom you listen to in your creative ventures. What advice you take, which you ignore. What you keep on with, despite all the rejections and the "realistic" suggestions that could make you successful...but not bring the fullness of your heart to the printed page. And deep inside, you realize that the fullness of your heart on the printed page is the only thing that makes it worth being a writer at all.

This story is that book for me. Unlike this woman in the account I've read, I've wavered from my story's path. I've taken some of that well-meaning advice. I've tried writing other things. I've written whole books' worth of other things. I've even had some success with those other things...to a point.

But this is the book that's written from my blood on the page.
This is the book that only I can write.
This is the story that only I can tell in this particular way.
This is the story I HAVE to write. And write. And keep writing...until it's out there.
It is the book that has reignited the Muse.
And I'm not letting go of it until it blesses me.

God help me, I can do no other.
And I am having more fun than anyone has a right to. :-)

Thoughts?
Janny