The whole writing thing isn’t working out. You’re still sending out those sad ass queries, closing in on 100 now, and it’s just. Not. Working.
You could quit. Or you could write for the pure enjoyment of it without even thinking about publication. Crazy but there are lots of artistic precedents. For instance, I paint. I never expect to sell one (though, come to think of it, I just did, so the payoff was doubly sweet because I never expected that. Now I don’t expect to sell another.) If it isn’t at all fun, then yes, you should quit writing, anyway. If it’s no fun for you, it’s going to be torture for the reader.
If you aren’t having fun, you could read the post on writer’s block below and laugh. Or if, after you digest the lessons, you find yourself out on a ledge and the people look like ants, and the pavement beckons, well…free will, I say.
Or you could figure out what you need to do to change things up.
You could join a writers’ group or take a course–anything where they show you where you need to punch up your query. If you aren’t even getting nibbles for partials after 75 queries, it’s you. (Click here for the business site. I do vet manuscripts, you know.)
I’m not saying you need a self-publishing company yet. Maybe you need a website or just a printer. What you really need is a plan. There are a lot of books to help you with that. Many successful authors have been rejected more than 100 times (and that’s a symptom right there not to wait to be discovered, not to put all your testicles in one basket, and not to wait for annointment by people who sign bestselling authors, but apparently only accidentally.)
Author, cartoonist and my personal savior Scott Adams has observed that a really brilliant idea is, in its beginning stages where you’re looking for outside approval and funding, really hard to recognize as a brilliant idea. In fact, really brilliant ideas are indistinguishable from incredibly stupid ideas at first.
Man on the moon? Impossible.
Splitting atoms? Forget it.
Another vampire book? That’s so over.
A book about a boy wizard? Yawn.
Dean Koontz is still writing? Okay, that one is a recognizably bad idea, but you get my drift.
Now go out there and be the little engine that could! Okay, Sparky?
Go MAKE IT HAPPEN.
You’re a winning writer!
Filed under: publishing, rules of writing, Writers, writing rules, writing tips
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