Six unpublished novels sit before me on my laptop. Okay, to be fair the first one is the “throw away” that all novelist wannabes have to write. Probably the second one, too, if I’m to be entirely honest. Novel four wasn’t that great, being a Nanowrimo effort. The other three, however, I like.
It’s a funny thing, how writers feel about their children. Unlike our biological offspring, we are told to drown our darlings and make them suffer. That applies to works as well as characters. We are advised to throw away our first ten-thousand hours of work.
Well, maybe not throw them away completely. Experts—and we all have to respect experts—claim that it takes ten-thousand hours of doing anything artistic to become proficient. That’s over two years of waking time completely devoted to the craft. Most of us can’t afford more than a few hours of writing a week.
It’s difficult to know how to measure success in writing. Getting published is a hurdle. With my six novels—easily over the ten-thousand hour bar—I’ve had such trouble that I wonder why I bother. My Medusa novel was under contract and then cancelled. She is my darling. I can’t drown her.
That novel was largely written while I was unemployed. It means something special to me. It means having the ability to laugh in the face of difficult times. It means not having to take life too seriously. It means I had written two novels that could be thrown away if only this one could be published.
I read a lot, but I’ve never read anything enough like it to suggest a publisher. Those whom I’ve tried have been, to put it politely, unimpressed. One claimed I was trying too hard! Since when is that a publisher’s decision to make?
If you don’t succeed, what has happened to those ten-thousand hours? I’m not looking to grow rich by my writing, but I would like someone to toss a few pennies my way and say, “you done okay, considering.” And I will spend at least another ten-thousand hours doing what I’ve already done.
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