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The path to publication can be a long and difficult one. More often than not, the long road supplants the quick, easy one in our tentative expectations. Sometimes the road is bumpy. Sometimes it’s boggy. Sometimes it has a sharp drop-off in the middle. Frodo and the hobbits had Elvish waybread to sustain them as they trekked through the perils of Mordor. What do writers have?
Ideas. The desire to express them. If we’re lucky, we also have supportive, encouraging friends and relatives. Those of us who’re even luckier have supportive, encouraging friends and relatives who also can help us figure out what we need to do better.
Some of my friends finaled in the big RWA contests, the Golden Heart and the RITA. That means their books wowed five randomly chosen judges. More power to them! Others of my friends, the majority, didn’t make that final cut. That doesn’t mean their books aren’t great. Great books miss the cut every year. It just means the judges who had them didn’t love them quite enough. Still, it’s easy to feel left out, to have a twinge of envy for those who have access to this additional shot at editors. When that happens, the best thing to do is turn back to the keyboard and dig in.
Wouldn’t it be great to have lembas, the Elves’ waybread, to help?
Wouldn’t it be great to have a zillion dollars?
The money wouldn’t help as much as the waybread. If we start focusing on the value of our ideas, believing in ourselves, that’s a form of waybread. It renews our strength and determination. There is no secret elixir, no magic fix, for publication of one’s work, but there is a secret elixir for perseverance. It’s the love of one’s ideas.
As my buddy Cassondra Murray pointed out in a recent blog, letting someone else hold the validation yardstick isn’t a great idea. It can even be crippling. If we love our ideas, though, and stay true to them–while honing the craft of expressing them, of course–we’re more likely to enjoy the not only the destination but the journey.
What’s your secret elixir?
2 Comments
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Bull-headedness.
I’ve never thought that Elvish bread would taste that great, actually. I mean, if it appeals to elves, it’s got to be made up of stuff humans wouldn’t ordinarily eat, right?
And if we had a zillion dollars, I’m sure we’d waste it somehow! But first I’d get a new computer…