You’re pouring over your original novel for the tenth time. You love it! Your mother loves it! Your friends ALL love it! But no one in the literary world wants it.
How long do you continue to spend time writing, editing, rewriting, and sweating blood over it?
When is it time to say enough and put it away forever?
There are hours, days, months of work it that baby. Can you let it go?
Is it even relevant anymore?
Sometimes there is a difference between a work we are truly called to write, and a work that we wantto write. Do we understand that difference?
Maybe you simply wrote it for a chance to learn something in the writing process. Maybe to encourage yourself to keep writing. Maybe just because it seemed like a good idea at the time.
When is it time to say enough?
I wrote my first novel in '08-'09. Then I wrote two sequels, because one editor told me I would have to have a series to be published. I'd started a new project, but kept trying to find a home for my WWII series. And in March of this year, I signed a contract. Did I ever think of giving up? Yes! But as long as there were other possibilities to explore, I didn't want to say "Enough."
ReplyDeleteI think I gave up on getting my books published, but I didn't give up on writing. I love to write, so I continued creating characters. I have quite a few books sitting and waiting. Short stories stare at me and ask me to make them into books! But one of my books found a publisher...thanks to a great agent named Linda! :) And the second book in the series is going through the editing process! I'm glad I didn't shelve the books but remained determined to seek a home for them.
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