Novelist's Survival Tip and Hello from Margaret River.

Hi all!

I'm actually relaxing in Perth and Margaret River at the moment, but being the super duper organised freak that I am I got all my posts written and scheduled before I flew away - and I'll tell you, it's one long flight from the east coast to the west coast of Australia, over 5 hours. I'll actually be jet lagged when I get back, so I've certainly got my RFWer story written and scheduled for the day after.

But this post is about writing our novel, right? As an avid reader of Writer's Digest, I thought I'd do my take on a  recent article I read in the January 2012 issue.

I'll just bring up one of the 7 tips WD offered:

DON'T TAKE SHORTCUTS

• Anyone can be published nowadays with the boom in e-books, so now you don't have to bother writing a novel worth reading, right? Wrong! If you think whatever you write is worth publishing, think again. If you write a poorly-written self-published book, you may sell some books the first time round, but no one will come back for more.

• Don't think of editors as nasty creatures if they reject your manuscript, preventing you from rushing ahead and 'being published'. You can recover from the blow, and learn from rejection and use it as motivation to write better. Sure, we all know rejection hurts, but it's part of the process. 

               - Let it hurt for half and hour then get back to the keyboard.

                      - Learn from the critique if there is one. The publishing industry actually wants new authors.

Here's a couple of quotes - 

"Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go." 

E.L. Doctorow

"If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it."

Elmore Leonard

• Is this the year you're going to find a publisher? It's one of my goals for 2012.