Kelly Gibbons, artist and writer, about me

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Pass the bottle, baby

A little peek into the novel writing process. These are the saved rewrites, many were tossed.

At every stage of the novel writing process, I have had to do battle with confidence. I'm lacking in that department. Seriously, if I could by it by the bottle I would--it would do so much more for me than my Diet Pepsi does. Some days, I look at what I wrote, and see it as an accomplishment, but on most days, I look at my work with a critical eye. This sucks. Why bother?

Well, I bother, because I have put two years into this thing, and in the confident moments when I am proud of what I've written I really think I can do something with this book. I like the story. I believe in the characters. I want them to come to life in a published book, so other people can meet them.

I believe in signs, and when this landed in my inbox, I took it as a sign:

"I've taught creative writing for years and I've discovered that talented writers are a dime a dozen. I know people whose writing makes me ache with envy. But these same people never get published because they lack perseverance.

It takes perseverance to finish the book; it takes even more to market it. Since many untalented writers meet with success, I'll take perseverance over talent any day."

Margaret Brownly

Persistence pays off has been somewhat of a mantra over the last two years (in the confident moments, anyway). If I keep pushing I just might get there.

posted by Kelly @ 5/04/2006 06:35:00 AM

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