Determination and Timing
" . . . the mass market might want what the mass market wants, but that doesn't mean that it's your market."
I recently had a conversation with a writerly buddy of mine. She's an awesome story teller. Her prose is killer. And talk about characters that stick with you long after you've read the end. Sheesh. I'd like to write like her when I grow up.
And she's never been published yet.
I know. Right? What the heck? I have a bald patch from scratching my head over the years as to why no publisher has scooped up her work yet. I've suggested a few times that maybe she should write a story that's totally in the parameters of what the market wants, just to get her foot in the door. Yet she maintains that she must write the stories on her heart.
That, my friends, takes guts and a hearty round of applause.
I suspect that when the publishing world finally comes to its senses and snatches her up, her stories will sell like nobody's business. Apparently it's just not time yet.
No matter how talented you are, how persistent, how ripe you are for the writerly picking, landing a contract is most often about timing, and that timing is as fickle as a wind from the east.
So hang in there my writerly buddies. I have no idea when you'll get discovered but I do know this:
if you quit writing you will never be discovered.
And if you never enter the giveaway for a signed copy of The Captive Heart, you'll never win. Here's your chance . . .