Well I know I’ve felt my own sense of desperation this week, but it has to do with having not a single blogging brain cell the past few days. Bleh.
Fortunately, Diana does. *g*. She’s talking about writers and the rush to publication and the sense of desperation. Check out her blog discussion today, because it’s a really good one. She also references Jo Leigh’s awesome discussion today on Romancing the Blog. Check that one out, too.
So I read these blogs and nodded my head in agreement, wondering why I see so many people gnaw their fingernails and gnash their teeth and scream in frustration while people around them are being published and they’re not. Is it because they lack the talent, the drive, the ambition?
Well…no. Okay, maybe some of them do. But a lot of incredibly talented writers haven’t had their shot yet because of many different factors. Could be the right editor, the right book, the right market and the right time. I firmly believe hitting the jackpot in publishing is all about timing. Yes, you have to have the talent, first and foremost. You have to write a saleable book. But it really is a lot about fortuitous timing.
Before i was epublished, i had friends who were getting print published. Oh, I targeted the print pub world for awhile, but then I stopped because the market just wasn’t right for me at the time. I just kept writing the books that fit my voice, and writing the stories I loved.
Then i was lucky enough to get published with Ellora’s Cave, and I published a LOT of books with them, happily writing along. A couple years into my happy epublishing journey, a few of my friends and peers in epublishing started to get NY contracts. I kept writing ebooks (with my blinders on). Successfully writing ebooks and not at all concerned about grabbing that agent or selling to NY.
I could have ‘oh woe is me’d’ to the nth degree about why I wasn’t making that next leap into NY land like my peers were. I didn’t. I was ecstatically happy for them, but I kept doing my thing at my own pace.
Then lo and behold I ran into my soon to be agent in blog land purely by accident one weekend, we chatted, she signed me, and through a course of whirlwind events I sold a book to NY within 3 months of her signing me. Whoa. But that was MY journey, unique to only me. (The timing thing I mentioned earlier…I got really, really lucky)
And even now some of my friends and peers are signing even more contracts…way more than me. Does that bother me? Uh, no. I do what I do at my own pace. I try really hard not to pay attention to what is going on around me as far as sales of other writers, other than to celebrate their successes. I’m perfectly happy with my life and what I’m doing.
Everyone has their story…everyone has their pace, their personal and professional journey. Just do your thing and your professional life will unfold as it should. Don’t EVER compare your writer’s journey to what is happening around you and worry about what you think SHOULD be happening.
There are no SHOULD’s. There only IS. The IS..is your life. It’s all that counts.
Why do I feel like Yoda now? *g*