I wondered how many people shared their passion with a fellow family member, or had to put family to one side to focus on writing. I have always known that my aunt was a writer, but she was mostly into poetry. Now she has just finished her 2nd book which has been shortlisted for an unpublished writers award in the UK. The prize being a publishing deal. Its great news, and potentially could give me some extra insight into that world, but at the same time it brings home just how much work I've still got to do to finish my 1st book. PS Don't get me wrong, I love writing it, its a joy, but if I don't get a publishing deal straight away I will feel like a failure. :redface:
Brace yourself to feel like a failure. 99.879% (approximately) of writers experience rejection. Multiple times. Some of them, hundreds and hundreds of times. If you maintain your present mindset and want writing to be a joy for the rest of your life - never submit it anywhere or let anyone else read it. Ever. Somebody's bound to burst your bubble. If you want to become published one day, then the sooner you realize that writing is a business, as well as an art/craft/joymaker, the sooner you'll see your name on a book jacket.
A rejection doesn't necessarily mean that you're writing isn't any good. It means that the publisher doesn't want it, so you move on to the next publisher. You have to be willing to handle rejection, otherwise the publishing process may be difficult for you. For example, I recently submitted and published my first article for a website(I'm not sure whether it would be considered an ezine). I was feeling discouraged because I'd submitted other poems and stories and had them rejected. Then I got online and saw that my article had been accepted. It was a huge boost to my confidence and made me realize that it would be worth to stick it out and keep trying. It can get discouraging, but if you want to be a writer you need to accept the fact that you'll probably face a few rejections before you get accepted anywhere. ~Eliza
Hi all, Yesterday marked a new milestone for me as an author, somewhere during it I sold the thousandth copy of my novel Maverick. Yeehah!!! Its a big thing for me even if its only a drop in the bucket for most other successful authors. Now this got me thinking. I've celebrated a few milestones in my limited writing career, finishing and publishing my first book, my first sale, my first completely unsolicited five star review etc. I'm sure that many others in this forum have done much the same. My question though, is much more basic. How do the rest of you celebrate your various writing successes? (Like me with a beer and a sci fi dvd - battle Los Angeles, and maybe a chat with family and friends?) And with it, also is it important to? Cheers.
congrats, that's a great achievement!! ) You have every reason to feel happy about it. *hoping I can celebrate the same thing one day* lol.
Awesome news man. I think a lot of us dream to get as far as you've come. I haven't had any writing successes yet but I still like to celebrate when I've done a lot of writing in a week or gone past a milestone like 50% drafted etc. I'd celebrate with a cigarette, smoked at night. (I'm odd ) Or... maybe a cheese sandwich. I think it's important to acknowledge even our little successes, because writing a novel is a lot of work and the payoff doesn't come until months or more commonly years afterwards. It can get a bit daunting to work on a novel day after day for weeks and weeks and seeing no benefit, no end in site. Celebrate what you can.
Congratulations! That's a really big achievement! Well, if I do ever get to celebrate. I'd probably need some epic orchestral music, Chinese takeaway, some friends then some music to do crazy dancing to lol. It's not important, but I think people should *u* it's normal to celebrate when you achieve something.
Congratulations! You're miles ahead of me - I haven't even completed a novel yet, let alone published it and had people buy it. So celebrate any way you want to, but make sure you get enough sleep tonight, because you'd better be writing more tomorrow!
Congratulations! A thousand sales is pretty darn impressive. I've haven't had success with a novel, but when I learn a short story has been sold, I usually throw my fist in the air and scream so loud the entire house can hear me. And so ends my celebrations. If I were to get a novel published, there might be fireworks involved.
Fantastic! That is awesome news. I say celebrate any time you are feeling proud. Why shouldn't you?!!
I usually celebrate my successes by posting my list of accomplishments onto a message forum asking others how they celebrate their successes. (edit: and I'm just busting your porkchops, I know you probably weren't fishing for compliments, and they're well deserved anyway, still it's a funny situation!) I'm personally not big on celebrating. The way I figure it, there will be plenty of time celebrating my successes in life when I'm dead. Until then, I'll keep focusing on laying eggs, not counting chickens. If something great did happen to me, I'd probably be the type to never mention it to anyone and then one day they just find my book on the shelve and I'd be like 'oh, that thing, yeah, book deal, shrug, have more important things to do.' I don't know if that makes me humble, arrogant, a jerk or gracious, or what, but it is what it is, I suppose. I don't begrudge people for celebrating success and meeting goals, though. With something like writing, you've got to take the good and positive where you can! And, post well done, I'll be googling your book.
Hahahahahaha! I think I would do the same. Maybe a little private ceremony for just me and myself (like, buying something pretty for myself or do something I've been wanting to do) but I wouldn't throw a big party and invite all my friends. I don't know what to call it either
Hi Guys, And thanks for the congrats. Popsicledeath, maybe I was looking for a few congrats, writing alone is sometimes a long and difficult thing. So consider my chops busted. But I was also curious about what sort of things people do to celebrate, because somehow I thought I should do something, but I didn't quite know what. As for the do nothing say nothing approach, yeah I can understand that too. I try to keep the details of my books sales etc quiet from my colleagues and most others - mainly because its embarrasing. Cheers.
The thought that is would be embarrassing "admitting" to have written a novel/actually letting people read it, I have had that one too. When people ask me what my story is about, what kind of story it is I am usually too embarrassed to tell. Maybe if I was writing a thriller I wouldn't, but writing a romantic story is something that would make most people look at you with amusement or lose interest in reading it, even though I know many people read those and that is what I wanna write. It might not have been the kind of embarrassment you were talking about, I know, but I thought I'd share.
Listen to Van Morrison's Back on Top which basically deals with success, what do you do, the feelings associated with success etc. But other than just being proud of yourself, what can you do other than move forward? Always move forward. I think dealing with success associated with writing is hard, because who other than yourself can truly understand everything that went into your writing. You can celebrate it with the ones you love but do they understand? Maybe, who knows, I have no answers.
I think that's fantastic to sell 1k. I think that's very impressive. I also notice you have several other novels as well, and I hope your entire catalog does great for you. Personally, I suggest a bottle of Dom and a nice cigar! Again, congratulations. I love it when an author of the new order (Kindle, independent-publisher, etc.) does well. It's inspiring.
what does success mean to you as a writer?..could be simply finishing your book, or making alot of money or getting published..what are you guys thoughts on that? for me just finishing a book that i really love would be and accomplishment.everything else would be a bonus.
Success for me would be to have one book published commercially. To leap that hurdle would be tremendously gratifying. A tidy number of sales would be the icing on the cake
THIS But heck, I'll take self published with making a couple hundred bucks -- the goal is to just get published for me
My idea of success is actually completing the book series I'm working on, and not just that--but completing it to MY satisfaction. Then I might actually want to get it published.
Making millions off my book. Nah, kidding. Finishing, publishing and making a decent profit would be my ultimate goal. Doesn't have to be millions, but it'd probably be quite a downer if it just flopped
If I could sell a story to a professional publication - one that would pay in actual money - I'd regard that as success. It would mean that some independent person thought my work worth paying for. Of course, as soon as that happens, my definition of success will change. I will insist on a bestseller! And millions of dollars!
