More Good Advice

Still thinking along the lines of sound advice to offer beginning writers, I remembered some of the biggest mistakes I made early on. First, I was so darn anxious to have Judgment on Tartarus published that I sent out the ms. long before it was truly ready for publication. My work was too amateurish at that point, but I was so excited about my story that I overlooked its flaws.

Instead of letting my work "rest", then going back over it with a fine-tooth comb and fixing it, I rushed it off to a publisher. Nowadays, writers rush out to publish an e-book! Looking back now, I can see all too clearly why no publisher would take on Judgment. The story was good ( and remains so to this day ), but I hadn't done a good enough job of telling the story, of editing and refining my work. Had Judgment been published in that condition, I would've been highly embarrassed. I'm afraid that many of today's young and eager writers are going to look back upon their early work, shudder, and groan!

As a writer, you want to put yourself in the best possible light. Instead of bragging that you published a book, I want you to be able to brag that your book is the absolute BEST you could possibly write and never regret publishing it.

The second piece of advice I'd give you is don't discourage easily---another huge mistake I made. After several rejections and one near-publication of my second novel, True Son of Tartarus, I gave up. What I didn't realize until much later was that my book wasn't to blame for the rejections. True Son is also a good story, but---for whatever reason: budget constraints, timing, inappropriate genre, etc.---the major publishers weren't going to go out on a limb to publish an unknown author.

So if you're getting nothing but rejections from publishers, you first need to take a long, hard look at your work. If you can honestly say it's a good book, worthy of and ready for publication, keep on plugging and don't let yourself get discouraged.

I think the two worst mistakes a writer can make are publishing your work before it's up to par and giving up on it too quickly.

As they say, a word to the wise...

MRTighe