Writing...Just because!

I am pleased today to host a guest blog by author mentor, Morgen Bailey. Morgen was extremely supportive when I launched my first novel and I'm delighted to have her share her insights on what it takes to be a successful writer. Morgen Bailey Take it away Morgen!   Writing Essentials by Morgen Bailey American science-fiction novelist Jerry Pournell is reported to have said “I think it takes about a million words to make a writer. I mean that you're going to throw away.” I started writing for fun nine years ago and more seriously six years ago and with seven NaNoWriMo  novels , one-and-a-half novels in between, three NaNoWriMo story collections (a cheat on doing a novel November 2011 but I still made the 50,000-word minimum), part of a script, some poetry and loads of short stories under my belt, including three 31-story collections for Story A Day May and five 50-story collections for 5pm Fiction , I know I’ve reached that target. How much of them I’ve thrown...

Several months ago I started to query literary agents for my first novel, which I wrote last year during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) .   At the time, I considered writing the odd blog to keep everyone updated on the progress… does the term wading through cold molasses mean anything to you?   Rejection hurts! Well, due to a variety of assorted reasons (excuses), the plan to write a series on agent querying ground to a halt after the first five polite rejections.   It really doesn’t matter how polite the rejection is, or how stoic you’ve received them at the time, it still stings.   Even though I kept reading on all my writer/author forums that so many very famous authors were passed over hundreds of times before a publishing company picked them up, I still didn’t want to publicly share my humiliation. Then I realized how cathartic it would be to share with people who care or who have been through the process before and can reassure me...