I quit

                                                                 

                                                                     I quit

How many times as an author, have you quit?  In the beginning, you struggled over your manuscript writing and rewriting.  You just could not find the right tempo.  Then one glorious day it all came together.  Your idea became a story. You breathed life into your characters.  You continued to write adding new features.  Soon they became real, as real to you as your next-door neighbor.  You met with them daily you shared their joys their sorrows.  You came to love your heroes and to hate the villain.  Page after page you wrote and rewrote.  Late at night, you labored as the rest of the family slept or in the wee hours of the morning.  You laughed you cried wiping away tears you wrote.  Summer became winter winter passed into spring then summer came again still you plugged away.

Finally, you wrote the last sentence. Relief settled over you.  It was done.  Your novel your masterpiece completed. You celebrated.  The book, which changed your life, would now change others.

You searched for just the right agent or publisher.  You lovingly bundled your book like a baby.  With trepidation, you handled you dreams to the postal clerk.  You felt as if you were sending your first child to war.  You visited bookstores dreaming of seeing your novel on their shelves.  You watched other authors interviewed on TV thinking of what you would say about your wonderful novel.  Perhaps you would purchase a new car.

After all as a successful author, you could not drive the old one to all the book signings.

Therefore, you waited and dreamed.  You bragged to family and friends.  Soon you be wealthy.  Days became weeks and turned into months.  Surely, your book was lost in the vast U S Postal system.  Then one day when you had given up hope your manuscript came limping home.  The rejection letter tore your heart out.  Embarrassed you went to that dark corner alone and wept.  You moaned, you screamed, you cried.  You put away your writing materials.  You thought of burning the manuscript and all the copies.  Then the worst thing in the world happened you quit.  You swore you would never write another ting other than email or a grocery list.

 How selfish of you.  If you stop now we will never read your novel.  If Hemmingway quit the world would be deprived of The Sun also Rises.  If John Steinbeck stopped writing, we not have The Grapes of Wrath.  What of William Faulkner, of Thomas Wolfe and others what if they quit before they were published. No, you cannot quit!  Not now, or a year from now when you have received 10, 20 or a hundred rejections.  Keep going we want to read your book.