You think your book is good enough, captivating enough, surprising enough, suspenseful enough, sexy enough to be a bestseller.
But nobody steps up to represent it. You don’t get an agent. No one offers a book deal.
I know the feeling.
No eye has read my first novel in over fifteen years. My second novel, the project I developed for five years and submitted as my Master’s thesis, it hasn’t been opened since 2015. I submitted that book to agents. I got a published author to introduce me to an agent, and that book never gained representation.
My third novel finally won me a literary agent, but it never got the book deal.
Should I Throw In the Towel?
Maybe you’re familiar with Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, and you’ve run the math on your career output of writing to find you’ve put in well over 10,000 hours of practice into your dream.
If you’ve put in the time and the outcome looks nothing like what you expected, is it time to admit you lack the skills?
Committing is Courageous
Here’s a secret. Everyone wants you to quit. Everyone. The world is rooting for you to fail. All you have to do is sleep in tomorrow.
You can call it rest. Call it relaxation, recharging. BALANCE. Before you know it, you too can wrap your bitterness and regret in wisdom, using phrases like “reasonable goals” and “family time” and “workaholism.”
Or you can be the idiot. Commit to your goals. Double them. Step further into the unknown. You’ll be labeled stupid when you do, and it will hurt, but committing is courageous.
Stupidity Separates You From the Failures
I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be labeled stupid, irrational, naive, and foolish than know in my spirit I quit when I had the energy and ability to see my dreams through.
No one can tell you you’re a failure but you. So if you want to make a stupid goal like changing the world with your writing, is it any surprise you’re going to need to be stupid to accomplish that goal?