If at first you don't succeed...give up
Monday, August 27, 2007
You read that correctly. Forget about the power of positive thinking, The Secret and all that rub-yourself-with-lucky-oil shenanigans, giving up is sometimes the best thing you can do.
No, I haven't been over-medicating myself, I'm serious. Here's why:
That quote isn't just referring to the cute guy from accounting you have tied up in your basement; it relates to the things we want to do as well. Such as, you guessed it, writing.
Case in point: in my goal to send queries to at least 24 different publications this year, I've come across a heap of editors who don't respond. Imagine that -- someone sends them a lovely query letter and they don't even send a hasty "doesn't fit/covered it already/I know your cousin" reply so that I can move on to the next publication. Sheesh!
But that's the nature of the business. Editors are freaking busy and some of them feel it's best to just avoid the nasty rejection situation altogether. Then again, some take so darn long to get back to writers, a writer might have already written them off when an assignment letter lands in the inbox.
Maybe it's due to the full moon, but I was reviewing my query-letter spreadsheet (I know, freak of nature alert!) when I checked over a few queries that had been unanswered for nearly three months. Perhaps the cool editors I work with had spoiled me, but I felt that with the passing of that much time, I considered the queries free to send out to other publications or recycle them for next year.
That was on Saturday. Today, I received an assignment letter for one of those queries. After I had given up on hearing back on it.
Heck I also gave up on completing the first, second, third and fourth drafts of H&B. And each time, as soon as I gave up, my muse would appear again, looking mopey and begging me to give it another chance. Well, I did and, even though nothing has happened with it yet, at least I can say that I've finally completed a presentable draft of my manuscript.
And for a procrastinator like me, that's huge.
The quote also relates to pets...enjoy...Zaphod now weighs in at 14 ounces!
No, I haven't been over-medicating myself, I'm serious. Here's why:
If you love something, set it free; if it comes back it's yours, if it doesn't, it never was.
That quote isn't just referring to the cute guy from accounting you have tied up in your basement; it relates to the things we want to do as well. Such as, you guessed it, writing.
Case in point: in my goal to send queries to at least 24 different publications this year, I've come across a heap of editors who don't respond. Imagine that -- someone sends them a lovely query letter and they don't even send a hasty "doesn't fit/covered it already/I know your cousin" reply so that I can move on to the next publication. Sheesh!
But that's the nature of the business. Editors are freaking busy and some of them feel it's best to just avoid the nasty rejection situation altogether. Then again, some take so darn long to get back to writers, a writer might have already written them off when an assignment letter lands in the inbox.
Maybe it's due to the full moon, but I was reviewing my query-letter spreadsheet (I know, freak of nature alert!) when I checked over a few queries that had been unanswered for nearly three months. Perhaps the cool editors I work with had spoiled me, but I felt that with the passing of that much time, I considered the queries free to send out to other publications or recycle them for next year.
That was on Saturday. Today, I received an assignment letter for one of those queries. After I had given up on hearing back on it.
Heck I also gave up on completing the first, second, third and fourth drafts of H&B. And each time, as soon as I gave up, my muse would appear again, looking mopey and begging me to give it another chance. Well, I did and, even though nothing has happened with it yet, at least I can say that I've finally completed a presentable draft of my manuscript.
And for a procrastinator like me, that's huge.
The quote also relates to pets...enjoy...Zaphod now weighs in at 14 ounces!
posted by Bonnie Staring at 8:05 PM
2 Comments:
He's got that crazy look like he's hepped up on something.
Three months isn't that long (I know it's long for us) I know someone who waited nine months.
Was it wrong to spike his formula with some Red Bull?
I leave waiting nine months for expectant mothers. ;)
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