“The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The cat sat on the other cat’s mat is a story.”

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”

“To know what you want to say is not the best condition for writing a novel. Novels go happiest when you discover something you did not know you knew: an insight into one of your opaque characters, a metaphor that startles you… a truth… that used to elude you.”

“As far as I’m concerned, the entire reason for becoming a writer is not having to get up in the morning.”

“Reading usually precedes writing and the impulse to write is almost always fired by reading. Reading, the love of reading, is what makes you dream of becoming a writer.” ~ Susan Sontag

I love that quote because it’s so true. Writers are readers. We were readers long before we were writers. The irony here is that once you become a writer, you have less time to read. And if you’re like me, when you don’t read, your writing suffers.

I can always tell that I’m not reading enough when my writing turns flat. It’s almost as if I’ve forgotten how to write. And I can tell what I need to be reading based on what element of my writing has turned flat. When the romance in my manuscripts is overshadowed by the plot, I know I need to read more romance. When the suspense in a manuscript dies, I dig out a thriller or suspense novel. When my descriptive abilities amount to writing, “the gray mansion looked scary,” I know I’d better sit my butt down with a nice historical.

I also adore books on craft. A good one can spark a fresh bout of creativity and really help get my writing back on track.

The best cure, though? Going back to my roots and reading the authors who got me interested in writing in the first place. Stephen King. Jack London. Robert Jordan. Linda Howard.

What about you? Do you remember THE BOOK or THE AUTHOR that made you sit up and say, “I can do this. I need to do this.”?

I was twelve. And it was Stephen King.

“A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket.”

“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.”

“I have written a great many stories but I still don’t know how to go about it except to write it and take my chances.”

“You fail only if you stop writing.” Ray Bradbury

This is, at heart, the truest thing I’ve ever heard about writing. In reality, very few people make it right away. Yes, people do. People get repped in five minutes and end up with their manuscript at auction the next day and become the next big thing and stay there. But most of the time, the road is long and filled with obstacles.

And sometimes when you hit a lot of obstacles at once it can be particularly dark and hopeless. You begin to wonder if you’re ever going to make it. You watch your friends get deals, you read Publishers Marketplace and see all those deals and a constant refrain in your brain is, “Why not me? When is it my turn?”

You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you’re working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success - but only if you persist.
Isaac Asimov

Okay so to get to the moral of the story - Monday of last week I said to a friend - “you know, I’m just so sick of being on the verge of breaking. When do I reach the point where I accept it isn’t going to happen and just be happy with what I have?”

I hit this spot where I wasn’t necessarily sad, but I just felt sort of bleh and uninspired. I usually feel so passionate about writing but I think I was just in a big old rut. I was consistenly hitting my word goals and as the week went on I had a moment when the book shifted and I really learned who my heroine was and by the time Thursday rolled around I was golden again.

And then on Thursday morning I got the call from my agent. I’ve sold over twenty books but I’ve never gotten “the call” even for the anthology since it was four authors we all just emailed. Anyway, I’d sold a two book deal to Berkley Heat and suddenly, all I’d been working for had come together in that “right book, right editor, right time” sweet spot.

My head is still spinning and I keep giggling at random moments. I have a heck of a lot of work to do. But I will. I can and I will.

It can happen. It does happen. But it can’t happen if you quit.

“All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this: Act as if it were impossible to fail. That is the talisman, the formula, the command of right-about-face which turns us from failure to success.”