From the Fiction Desk

In the art of writing, there are questions of technique and method. Where do your poems or stories come from? Where do you get your characters? How did you compose such a plotline? All of this is part of the art of writing—either fiction or non-fiction. I have been to many lectures held by writers far more successful (published) than I. I get to hear all the questions and it is rare that you hear the one question covering the greatest obstacle a writer faces. The question is: “What keeps you going, inspired to write more, after all the rejections and all the hours you put into your work?”

The answer I believe is different for each writer. For myself the answer is simple and three fold. The first is that I love to write. The second is the bills facing me. (Yes, I want to be paid for my writing. If that is a sin—so be it.) The third I must keep to myself for now. The art of perseverance and patience is something every serious writer has to develop. We may get lucky and begin having publishers buy our work right away. We may publish something and it will be years before another is published. We may wade through an ocean of rejection slips before we can get another thing published. It is a hard and long road trying to walk from the “finished story” to the “published story.”

Oddly, when I get frustrated, I think of baseball. The great hitters only hit the ball three to four times out of every ten time at bat. That means they are only successful thirty to forty percent of the time. Note: This is per time they step to the plate to hit, not every time the ball is pitched. If you count, every missed swing and every foul ball—how what would their percentage of success be? Now add every time they should have swung and didn’t. When you put the success and failure of a new writer to publish in this pool of statistics, publishing once in a while makes you feel better and more successful. (Sadly, the ball player still gets paid when they are unsuccessful and the writer does not.) This helps me maintain the patience and to keep writing, like the ball player going to batting practice.

What keep you writing?

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for information on the blogs, stories, poems, and articles I write.