The most important lesson …
Recently, I was asked what was the most important lesson I had learned in the process of becoming—and I suppose being—a published author.
The answer, which I found a pretty easy one, was this:
“Just this: it’s the story that matters. It’s your only pilot star.“
What I mean by that is: that it is frequently a long and solitary (so yes, sometimes lonely!) slog writing a book in the first place, and no light task getting it out into the world either.
Once you do, there is no assurance of plain sailing — sales may not be steady, reviews may be hard to come and not all will be friendly, so building a readership may be proverbially tough.
That’s why I believe a writer really has to feel passionate and positive about the story she or he is telling, because it’s that passion and commitment and love of the work itself that keeps an author on course, and gets her or him through the rough patches.
Or that has been my experience at any rate.