I get a lot of mail (electronic and snail) from people who have enjoyed my books but who mention that they too would like to write. It always makes me think back over my own journey in this wild and wacky and VERY unpredictable career.
From the time I was in fifth grade I can recall thinking about telling stories in some way. I never really thought about it as “I want to be a writer” but more as “I want to tell stories.” There was a time when I thought I might do that on stage–as an actress. But I had neither the talent nor the stamina for that life. And then I started to write–and the more I wrote, the more I realized that whether anyone published my books or not, I simply couldn’t NOT write. I kept journals and tried my hand at a play and a screenplay. I went to work in corporate America and wrote marketing copy to sell products. And in between I just kept showing up at conferences and classes and meetings aimed at writers. I learned everything I could about the craft and applied what I learned to telling my stories.
Tonight I got the e-version of my latest contract–a 3-book deal for a series of stories set in WWII with a lead character in each who follows the Quaker (Society of Friends) faith to be published in 2013-14. This is a series that my agent has been trying to sell for the last couple of years. Truly I could probably paper the walls of a small bathroom with the rejections we have gotten on this one. So the pay-off here is not the $$$. It is the realization that somebody in the world of publishing has finally decided these are stories worth telling.
My point? This post isn’t really about my contract or career–it’s about believing in something so strongly that you can’t let it fail. I would so love to hear your stories of times when everyone around you rejected an idea or a project that you believed in and you stayed with it and saw it through in spite of those naysayers!!!
