It’s Saturday, then it’s time for Taylor Anne Vigil’s weekly post! Something a little different; no big pre-Taylor entry today; I’m going to add a couple words afterwards.
A bit of advice for first time writers: success isn’t achieved overnight. I say this not to discourage you, but to enlighten you. As someone who has been writing for nearly fifteen years, I feel that this is a must-teach moment.
I started writing at the age of thirteen. Like every teenager, I felt as if I could take on the world, as if I could write not just one, but ten novels in a year. Little did I know that sharpening my craft would take many many years and even then, I still wouldn’t have my first novel published. Today, I am only fifty pages into a novel that I’ve been working on since the age of twenty. Unfortunately, writer’s block and circumstances kept me from writing for weeks, sometimes months at a time, delaying my book’s progress.
I suppose what I’m truly saying is, yes; dream big, but not too big. I know from personal experience that expecting overnight success will only lead to disappointment. However, that doesn’t mean that you will never achieve success. Look at me! I may not have published a book yet, but I never dreamed I’d be writing for a blog and that right there is surely something to celebrate. Although my slow process still has me doubting myself every now and again, I know in my heart of hearts that I will publish that book. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but I will publish my story. And, you can publish yours too.
It’s Adam. I won’t usually do this, but this is something I can relate to.
Like Taylor, I started writing when I was a teenager. It was longer ago than I’m going to admit here, but I didn’t try to get published until I’d been writing for a decade. I had some mixed success early, but I dropped it again for a while until I started picking it up again in 2009/2010. With the advent of self-publishing through KDP and Amazon around that time, I jumped in hard. I was getting some traction, and then life happened. Again. I didn’t get back to it until 2020. Now, since then I’ve been able to devote time and energy to writing which I hadn’t been able to do before, which means I’ve had more success than before.
So what am I trying to say?
First, don’t stop! Whatever you do, don’t stop! It’s challenging, at best, to get started again after you stop, and you lose any momentum you have in terms of getting yourself out there. Don’t stop!
Second, don’t worry if what you’re producing isn’t Bestseller-worthy. You have to have words on the page before you can edit them, and even the best authors go through round upon round of editing before their readers see anything. But if you don’t write them, you can’t edit them. So keep writing them!
Third, talk to other writers. Ask questions. Ask if you can jump onto their page, their blog, their website. See if they want to collaborate. As my character, Kendra Cassidy, said: If I don’t ask, though, you can’t say yes.
Okay. I’ve blathered enough.
