{"id":2644,"date":"2010-12-06T06:30:17","date_gmt":"2010-12-05T17:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=2644"},"modified":"2010-12-05T19:25:48","modified_gmt":"2010-12-05T06:25:48","slug":"keeping-going","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2010\/12\/06\/keeping-going\/","title":{"rendered":"Keeping Going"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the 1st of every month I do a regular post on the Supernatural Underground<\/a> blog, which is run by speculative fiction authors published by HarperCollins USA . But the current\u00a0 “Publishing Rollercoaster” post<\/strong><\/a> by my fellow “Supe” and NY Times best-selling author, Jeaniene Frost<\/strong><\/a>, makes for extremely interesting reading, particularly for anyone aspiring to get a book published.<\/p>\n

Basically, Jeaniene lists all the agents and publishers (yup, there’s a few of\u00a0 ’em) who rejected her first—and best selling—novel, Halfway To The Grave<\/strong><\/em>. She also shares some of her thoughts on the path to publication. Fascinating reading—and it brought me back to what, if you listen to the stories of any number of successful writers, seems to be one of the key ingredients for success: No matter what else you do, you have to “keep going.”<\/p>\n

Interestingly, this is also the conclusion of a zen aphorism that I first heard quoted by Sensei Amala Wrightson<\/a> in Auckland: “The way is easy—keep going; the way is difficult—keep going. Keep going.”<\/em><\/p>\n

“Keeping going” is not just a really important part of getting published, it’s a huge part of writing a book at all. Easy or difficult, going well or going badly, you just have to keep going, pretty much every day. I say “pretty much” because I also agree with “Bad Astronomer”<\/a> Phil Plait<\/strong> that:<\/p>\n

“Actually, one <\/em>[writing rule of thumb] that\u2019s serious is that if it ain\u2019t working, it\u2019s OK to walk away for a while. As long as it\u2019s just for a <\/em>little<\/span> while.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Sometimes those little breaks, whether it’s a half hour walk, an hour in the garden, or a day “chilling”, are vital to keeping going because they get you and your story back on track. But the emphasis on the break only being for a “little while” is equally vital, otherwise you lose momentum.<\/p>\n

So speaking of “keeping going”, how am I getting along with WALL2?<\/p>\n

Aside from a few of those “little breaks” I am still sitting down every day and writing, and so far have gotten my new word count up to 26,870 since 16 November. With 10 days still to go for this “month”, that puts me ahead of the curve for surpassing last month’s 30,000 word\u00a0 total. More importantly, I can actually see the end in sight—although I’ve been working on a tricky wee bit of plot resolution over the past week which does create a slight feeling of “treading water” in terms of progress. (It’s kind of like dog-paddling through a vast ocean—every time you crest a wave, you see that the goal is really there<\/span>, quite close even, but then you go down into the next trough and it’s a while before you bob up again … )<\/p>\n

It’s at times like these that it’s even more critical to keep your eye firmly fixed on the “keeping going” aphorism. No, not<\/span> the goal, because the only way you’ll actually get there is by taking the next step, and then the next one after that—and if you stop to congratulate yourself on how close you’ve got, well, you risk stopping taking those necessary next steps!<\/p>\n

So the “secret” if you’re writing, or whatever other project you have on, really is to keep going—and then get up and doing the same thing all over again tomorrow!<\/p>\n

To read Jeaniene’s post, click here<\/a>. And Phil Plait’s is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the 1st of every month I do a regular post on the Supernatural Underground blog, which is run by speculative fiction authors published by HarperCollins USA . But the current\u00a0 “Publishing Rollercoaster” post by my fellow “Supe” and NY Times best-selling author, Jeaniene Frost, makes for extremely interesting reading, particularly for anyone aspiring to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,23,14,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books","category-about-what-im-doing","category-other-writers","category-supernatural-underground"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2644"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2658,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2644\/revisions\/2658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}