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On perseverance, a thread:
I’ve been asked many times abt how to keep going in the face of multiple rejections. The answer is very personal and will differ for everyone, but here are some factors that kept me going which I hope you’ll find helpful.
I’ve been asked many times abt how to keep going in the face of multiple rejections. The answer is very personal and will differ for everyone, but here are some factors that kept me going which I hope you’ll find helpful.
1. Friends. Build your own community of likeminded pple. I built mine through Absolute Write, which is one of the best resources for aspiring writers. And it’s free!
You can also find fellow writers on Twitter, Insta, FB etc. Or by joining events like Pitchwars or AMM.
You can also find fellow writers on Twitter, Insta, FB etc. Or by joining events like Pitchwars or AMM.
You need your writing crew to pick you up when publishing invariably gets you down, which it will because publishing is publishing and even the best of us will have battle scars. Without my friends I would’ve quit after book 1.
2. Write the next book. The best antidote for querying/submission blues is to fall in love with a New Shiny. Once I get to the query/sub stage of an MS, I immediately start plotting a new one. Otherwise I wld spiral into a depressive stage where I obsess
abt the book that’s being queried or subbed. And that’s outside of my control, so I can’t even do anything abt it, which drives me even further down the rabbit hole. So. Focus on New Shiny and when you feel particularly sad, turn to your friends!
3. Take a break. Sometimes, you just gotta. I like to take at least a couple of weeks off between projects. I bake, I run, I play games. I do things that rejuvenate my creative well. Do all the things that spark joy that doesn’t involve writing.
4. You can do all these and still hit a wall. After my 7th book started tanking on sub, I hit that wall. I asked my agent to pull it from sub and I cried for like two weeks straight. And I quit. I told myself I’d wasted enough of my life pursuing this writing dream
and that I was going to focus on other things. I avoided all publishing news. I hid from social media. I still talked to my writing friends because they were family by then, but other than that, I cut myself off from publishing. This lasted a few months.
A key part of this: I didn’t judge myself. I didn’t call myself a quitter. I told myself I had written 7 books and that was an achievement in itself. I told myself it was okay to stop there. So I didn’t hate myself, but...I was also still rly sad.
And I realized that the only thing that made me more miserable than writing was NOT writing. 
So I started my eighth book. It was a very dark book where the MC was killed and then grown back to life 7 times. (I am not one for subtle metaphors
) It was a terrible book. I haven’t read it since typing “The End”. But it was also cathartic, and while writing it,
) It was a terrible book. I haven’t read it since typing “The End”. But it was also cathartic, and while writing it,
I got the idea for Dial A For Aunties. DAFA was such a joyous, fun idea that I knew I had to let all my darkness out in my WIP, so I did. There was a LOT of angst and sadness and melodrama in book 8. And by the time I ground to the end, I was READY.
Something magical also happened then, which was that an old, old MS of mine (book #5) sold. An MS I had pretty much given up on. But even if it hadn’t sold, I still would’ve been ready to write DAFA. Me giving up and then writing out my sad book had revived me.
And DAFA would have been written regardless of whether #5 (The Obsession) had sold or not. But this is a derail. Back to not giving up. I think that when you hit that wall, it’s worth taking a break for a while and taking the time to figure out if it’s making you happy.
Or if you’re super melodramatic like me, ask yourself which makes you more miserable: the thought of continuing or the thought of leaving it all behind? And no judgement. It’s okay to decide that it’s not for you and that you’d rather dedicate your time to something else.
So I don’t have a good answer on how to persevere in the face of continuous rejection because everyone’s journey is so different, but I hope that sharing mine might help a bit. 
