Grit and Ink

Like many book lovers and booksellers, I'm also an amateur writer and have been working on something of my own a couple of years now. It's one of those projects that progresses in fits and starts - I'll work on it for a couple of months in my spare time (i.e. on the train to work and during lunch breaks), then put it back on the shelf for a while as life takes over. So far I've done all the character creation, worldbuilding and the full plot outline from beginning to end, and right now I'm working on the scene-by-scene outline. That will give me a step-by-step guide to how I want to write the thing, and then once that's done I can take a deep breath and start on the actual first draft. I'm aiming for a total of 100,000 words, and at a conservative estimate of 500 words a day it looks like it's going to take me a while...

 

I have no idea if this is ever going to be published. I know just how tough the market is out there and I know for a fact that there are many writers with more perseverance than I have who have tried and tried and have never caught a break. However you do still hear stories of the lucky ones. New author Scott Lynch was discovered when he published excerpts of his book The Lies of Locke Lamora  on his blog for some friends. An agent caught wind of the hype, checked it out and signed him on. Now there's talk of a possible movie and Lynch has been locked in for a seven-book series. But while there's nothing wrong with taking every opportunity to make your work known, it would be a mistake to think that there are any shortcuts to getting published. The vast majority of new authors got where they are today through the usual slog of submitting work and continuing to knock on doors despite repeated rejection. While some people might think that writing is an easy alternative to a "real" career, it looks like authors actually need a hell of a lot of self-discipline, determination and old-fashioned grit if they want to be successful. Writing the damn book is actually the easy part...