Posts
Billy and Bobby, two children, were sitting outside a clinic. Billy happened to be crying very loudly.
"Why are you crying?" Bobby asked.
"I came here for a blood test," sobbed Billy.
"So? Are you afraid?"
"No. For the blood test, they cut my finger.
As Bobby heard this, he immediately began crying profusely.
Astonished, Billy stopped his tears and asked Bobby, "Why are you crying now?"
To which Bobby replied, "I came for a urine test!"
************
Besides being a terrible joke, what does that have to do with writing?
Perspective.
How you feel about your particular situation in the writing game is mainly perspective.
If you're a best-selling author like Stephen King, you have to knock it out of the ball park every time or critics start to murmur that you've lost it.
If you're a steadily employed author with not one best-seller, your publisher is beginning to think you will never be worth the effort he has put into you.
If you've just had your first novel published, you know unless it pulls in huge sales, the sentence from the publisher in these harsh economic times will be : one and you're done.
If you've just been taken on by an agent, you hourly log onto your inbox that never seems to have an email, saying your book has been picked up by a publisher.
If you're in the midst of sending off query after query, you seem to be knocking on the door of an exclusive club -- and you're wearing leper robes.
Lesson : Enjoy the journey.
You're alive. You're pursuing your dream. It may come true. It may not.
Grow in your craft. Appreciate the blog friends you make along the way. Hum to yourself as you write. Make your characters laugh as they face their destiny.
Have fun. Life is too short. It is fragile. Appreciate the beauty you find along the roadside of this journey of becoming published.
You won't be the same person tomorrow that you are today. The window of opportunity to grasp a cyber-shoulder of a fellow struggler may be closed tomorrow.
Take a moment to draw in a deep breath. Scan your cyber surroundings.
It is the dawn of your soul each time you lay down your worries to see what has been right in front of your eyes all the time.
*******************
Post Script :
Chuck Sambuchino, GUIDE TO LITERARY AGENTS, has requested interested blogs to contact him at : literaryagent@fwmedia.com if they would wish to review or talk about his new book, How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack (Sept. 2010).
Today's cartoon is again from the comic genius of Chuck Ingwersen :
http://wordsandtoons.com/2008/07/
And in keeping with yesterday's movie trailer, here is one for a movie that just might be fun :
