So here I am, two weeks out from the summer conference, still trying to wrap my head around everything I learned.
Wow.
Chances are it’s going to take me a while to really absorb everything. I made copious notes, almost enough to fill a book, and will be perusing through them at my leisure. But until then, for those of you who simply must have a golden nugget, here’s something to chew on.
The biggest thing I took away from the conference was that you have to write really, really well to get published. Before you huff off somewhere, waving this aside as a cliched platitude, I urge you to really think about it. If you wanted to play professional sports you know you have to be an amazing athlete with tremendous skill to get to that level; yet everyone and their dog think they can write a book and get it published. Is it any surprise then that well over 90% of all manuscripts submitted to agents and publishers are rejected? I don’t think so…
So where does that leave us aspiring writers? We have to write something amazing, something uniquely ours, something that only we could write. And here’s the catch – it’s probably going to take you a long time to figure out how to do that. Longer than you are expecting. Longer, possibly, than you are willing to committ to.
The key, of course, is to never give up. There’s an old axiom that’s often heard in this industry: There’s a word for a writer who never quits…
Published.