encouragement for the aspiring writer

Emerging from Post-Revision Haze to provide you with this public-service, link-heavy post for unpublished writers:

Celebrate your rejections. Really. Because getting rejections means that you’re completing stories and sending them out. Congratulations. If you’re getting rejections, you’re doing the job of a professional writer.

Still not convinced? Got the rejection blues? Tired of always being aspiring? DGLM’s Michael Bourret on enjoying the pre-published stage. And here’s a light-hearted look at the perks of being unpublished. Having seen books get savaged by Amazon reviewers, there are many days that I am grateful to be on this side of the Great Publishing Divide.

Here’s (upcoming) YA author Jodi Meadows on not giving up.

If you’re not interested in waiting for the Publishing Fairy to sprinkle you with gold dust, you can bypass all the gatekeepers, and go indie. There’s even a blog carnival for indie writers (via JA Marlow)!

Seth Godin on  hope and the magic lottery. I love this bit (which I think writers looking to build their fan base will appreciate):

If your business or your music or your art or your project is truly worth your energy and your passion, then don’t sell it short by putting its future into a lottery ticket.

Here’s another way to think about it: delight the audience you already have, amaze the customers you can already reach, dazzle the small investors who already trust you enough to listen to you. Take the permission you have and work your way up. Leaps look good in the movies, but in fact, success is mostly about finding a path and walking it one step at a time.

(Speaking of Seth Godin, here he is again talking about moving on from traditional publishing.)