Wednesday 1 August 2012

A rejection is nothing more than a necessary step in the pursuit of success

A rejection is nothing more than a necessary step in the pursuit of success
Bo Bennett
 
Well the submissions went out and can I just say in less than 24 hours I received one rejection. Oh the pain! Well it wasn’t so painful. There was a silver lining- basically the agent must have looked at my website as they said that whilst they were not interested in The Bittersweet they would be interested in seeing a submission for Detective Chupplejeep…. So watch this space – I am hoping he is my golden ticket. But lets see.

That is pretty much all my news - Lame I know. I have signed up to a few writing bloggers. As I previously mentioned Jeff Goins http://goinswriter.com/and now K M Weiland: http://wordplay-kmweiland.blogspot.co.uk/  See I am learning to add more links as I go! and on twitetr I found a great blog spot by Janice Hardy  http://blog.janicehardy.com/

I should have loads of new ideas now but to be honest I haven’t had the time to read through all the links and blog posts- One message is clear though – if you love writing – just do it!!!! I did manage to read an article by Chris Guillebeau http://chrisguillebeau.com/– a link from Jeff Goins and I downloaded and read his article on how to make a career out of social media. Some of his ideas were good, and definitely I think what he is doing works for him. He touches on what success means to you – and how everyone defines their own success. I agree and I think it is important to have this definition set out in your head before you start your journey- otherwise how do you know when you are successful? Recently (even before reading the article I have been thinking about this) basically I used to define success by having my own business. But is that really successful? No anyone can start their own their own business – but success would be having a financially productive, or financially stable business of your own. Of course I yearn for that day but why not turn this around. This was my dream before I started writing. Writing is like having a business all on its own. I define success when it comes to writing as selling books for money. As Goa Traffic is selling in such a way I define this as a success – not when I have broken even but when I have sold 1000 copies. I hope that day is sometime this year.

Anyway success definitions aside I am still struggling for time. I have just finished my first full critique of writing buddy’s book. I think it’s a learning experience too - critiquing someone’s entire novel. I enjoyed it and I hope he doesn’t hate me after doing this for him. Work is manic and so mostly I am brain dead in the evenings which is slowing down editing of the Bittersweet. I am up to chapter 17!!! Woo hoo- when I reach chapter 25 I will be halfway- hopefully by mid August.

I have started working again on Chupplejeep – don’t you hate it when you leave a part completed manuscript for months and then have to re read it to get back to your flow? I hate it- because when I read back, I edit, I confuse myself – It’s a long process. I am looking forward to completing this penultimate edit of Bittersweet so I put all my energies into Chupplejeep. My deadline for the first draft is December. In March this seemed plausible- damn life for getting in the way! I cant believe it is now August! Where has this year gone…