In the End, There's Always Hope

She's running through the woods. Limbs and thorny branches grab at her like little children at play, only these grasping hands rip her thin dress. Her feet, pounding across the dirt, try to find a place, anyplace, to hide. Even though she doesn't see him, her pursuer is close behind. She can smell him, rich and oily like the polish he uses to shine his boots to a blinding glare. The stream looms before her, small, but big enough to lose any trace of who she is. As soon as she steps into that stream, her hope is to come out beyond his grasp, beyond the horrific life she once knew and never loved...

Back in 2005, my husband and I experienced a pretty horrific car accident. Along with a lot of pain, weeks in the hospital, months away from our home, and years of surgeries, physical therapy, and painful recovery came a lot of pain killers accompanied by a certain dream that kept replaying in my sleep.

Her name is Hope. The girl I introduced to you, here, in the beginning. And for months after the accident I couldn't get her out of my mind. So, I asked my husband if he thought it would be weird if I sat down (because basically that's all I could do since my leg was shattered) and wrote her story. He said it wasn't weird at all. Bless that sexy man for not thinking I was going crazy!

With the aid of a healthy dose of Kelly Clarkson at the time (yeah, I know), I wrote my first novel. Now, I'd tried my hand at writing before. You know, the obligatory essays in college, the endless French papers about French authors, a final thesis for grad school, even my first attempts when I was in junior high and high school. The thing of it is that I've always had an active imagination. And I've always loved history. It came as no surprise to me that I chose Historical Fiction (no, I don't mean Historical Romance, because there is a difference) as my favorite genre in which to write.

I took Hope's story, along with some badly written short stories, and tried my hand at contests. The short stories never went anywhere, but, BINGO! Hope's story started hitting it in contests. I thought I had something good going on.

Then I got my first rejection.

The agent thought the story would work better for a YA agent. What?! This was not a YA novel (no offense to the YA authors out there), but hard-hitting literary fiction!

Okay, so I guess I needed to educate myself.

And that's exactly what I did. I took classes on how to construct a novel, what elements to look for that really pull the reader in, and how to know what genre I was even writing. I attended conferences, mainly in hopes of catching the right agent's eye, but also gleaning a thing or two about how this whole writing thing worked. I bought a few books on how to write a good book (not too many, because like with historical research, too much just bogs down your brain with unneeded information) and I learned how to deconstruct my own manuscripts and how to look at my characters with every step they took.

In the end, I eventually set Hope's story aside. My feedback from agents and contest critiques was inconsistent. I loved Hope, I loved her world, but I had to shelve her for the time being. And perhaps that was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made. I had poured so much of my own frustrations and pain into this character, but I wondered if she would ever go anywhere, and much to my own dismay, I thought the same of myself and this thing called writing.

But then I picked myself up and went to work on the next novel. At first I didn't love that main character as much as Hope. She didn't come saddled with as much baggage as Hope. Her life was too prissy and I began to wonder if I'd ever really like this new character.

But you know what? I realized I had to find that place where I could connect with my new MC. I visited a small town in the Midwest that eventually became the backdrop for my story. I saw her in the house that at first would feel strange and unwelcoming, but would soon become a hub of revealing secrets and open arms. I stood under an elm tree in the cemetery, envisioning a key moment in her story, seeing her struggle and at the same time seeing her fate. I walked Main Street, spoke with the local minister and a woman who worked in a church that is so crucial to my story and brings everything to a fatal head. In the end, I found out who this character was.

And after that, I loved working with her story.

I also knew I had a strong novel. I began the querying process. I'd get a few requests, send them out, get replies that said something needed to be fixed, and then I'd move forward again. It wasn't a constant path of every day querying, but rather done in spurts. Rejection can be a little overwhelming in the beginning, especially when it feels like you're just one of many receiving the same form rejection. You begin wondering if anyone is even reading the stupid query letter! So it's good to pace yourself.

By the beginning of this year, I decided I needed to take some time off, do a little spiritual soul-searching, and see if what I was doing was even the right path for me. After taking a month to rework parts of my novel, I decided I'd go with one round, maybe two, of querying and then I'd shelve this book as well. In March I sent out about a dozen queries and within a week I got five requests for fulls. I'd never had that many agents reply that fast and all at one time, so I was optimistic, but also very very cautious.

Okay, so let's cut to the chase, shall we. I'd like to announce that I've recently signed with Liza Fleissig of the Liza Royce Agency and I'm very excited about the next step! Getting published is a long road and, as you can see, I've been at it for a few years, but I'm prepared to keep going until I get there. From the time I started querying this novel to the time I signed, it took me about a year and a half to find representation. In the meantime, I didn't sit at home chewing my nails and watching my email inbox. Instead I kept working, writing two more novels in hopes that at least one of them sometime soon would get picked up.

Do I regret setting Hope's story aside? Sometimes, yes, but I know when it's time to move on. I enjoy going back to her story and thinking about the sequels I want to write (hers is the only story I've written where there will one day be sequels). It's sad to finish a novel, knowing you're finished with those characters, but with Hope I can always wander back to her world.

So, yeah, even when things seem bleak or overwhelming or just plain uncertain, I always have hope to go back to. Keep that in mind for yourself if you're struggling through this writing thing!

The Power of Persistence

"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."
-Calvin Coolidge


It happens to all of us. When we least expect it, Self Doubt shows its ugly face. Anything can trigger it: a harsh critique, a rejection letter, months of silence from an editor or agent, a sarcastic question (“you’re still not published?”) Maybe it’s the blank page on our computer screens, or the awful realization that our manuscript presents serious problems and needs a major rewrite (and many of our beloved characters must be eradicated from the face of the Earth.)




With the visit of such an unwelcomed character (whom we shall call SD), it’s no surprise that so many writers give up their dream of seeing their names printed on the cover of a book. After all, there are easier, more practical and instantly-rewarding professions. Wouldn’t it be simpler to just quit and save yourself the heartache?

Yes, it would be simpler.

But…

There will always be that little splinter stuck inside your heart that from time to time—in the middle of a sleepless night, chopping vegetables in your kitchen, standing in the line of a grocery store—would make you wonder:

‘What if I had finished that novel? What if I had pursued more agents? I could have been published by now. After all,’ you think as you pick a copy of a new paperback from the nearest magazine rack, ‘if so and so got published (and as I can see, this is not a work of art) I could have done this. My writing and my plot were much better than this!’

“Yes,” Mr. Coolidge reminds you with his thunderous voice, “you may be more talented and educated and creative, but YOU ARE NOT PERSISTENT, while Mrs. So and So IS!”

President Calvin Coolidge, a very persistent man.

It is persistence that pushed Margaret Mitchell to continue pursuing publication after Gone With The Wind had been rejected by 38 publishers.

Margaret Mitchell typed all 1037 pages of the first edition of
Gone With The Wind without the assistance of our friend, the PC.

The same persistence that Louise May Alcott had after they told her to “stick to teaching.” Or Judy Blume after two years of rejections; or John Grisham after 16 publishers said no to A Time to Kill.

If Jodi Picoult had listened to her SD monster, she would have never sent another query letter after more than 100 agents refused to represent her.

All the books we would have missed if this
prolific writer had quit after 100 rejections.

It must have taken a lot of determination and persistence for D.H. Lawrence to continue seeking a publisher for Lady Chatterly’s Lover after one of them told him: “For your own sake do not publish this book.”

Or Stephen King, who got dozens of rejections for his first novel, Carrie, but didn’t believe the publisher who claimed that “Science Fiction with negative utopias doesn’t sell.” (It was also a good thing that his wife—another persistent cat—recovered his crumpled manuscript from the trash bin.)

First edition of Carrie (thank you Mrs. King for
picking through your husband’s trash!)

Without persistence, Gabriel García Marquez would not have typed every day for eighteen months, sold his car and pawned almost every household appliance to provide for his family before he emerged with the thirteen-hundred-page-manuscript that would become his masterpiece, One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Don Gabriel García Marquez and
the first edition of One Hundred Years of Solitude.
(Eighteen months of writing that must have felt like a hundred years.)

And we all know where persistence took J.K. Rowling. (And a certain publisher’s daughter who couldn’t resist the charm of Harry Potter and persuaded her father to publish his story.)

There is no other profession where President Coolidge’s words prove more true than in writing. The publishing world is filled with inspiring stories of now-famous authors whose dreams may have seemed hopeless and foolish at first. But where would literature be now had they not persisted?


What about you: Have you ever felt like quitting? How did you find the motivation to continue writing? Can you think of other examples where persistence paid off?