Quitting

Yesterday, on one of the loops I'm on, a woman wrote a long, emotion-filled post about how she had gotten a hurtful rejection and she was quitting.

I've been there many times.

Not even over painful rejections. But burn-out, tired of the drill, all of it have caused me to quit.

I've rarely told the story of the first manuscript I ever subbed, but thought I would share today. I used to belong to a tiny chapter, CWRW, and one of the authors was in the Intrigue stable. Somehow, she managed to get her editor all the way from NYC to our tiny chapter. I got to pitch a manuscript called Wild Horse Moon, not to be confused with Wild Horses. (I do like wild horses, don't I?)

Anyway, the editor requested the ms. I was on my way! I made plans of what to spend the check on, who I would thank in my acknowledgement page...yada, yada, yada.

I didn't sell that manuscript, or the next fifteen. Yeah, fifteen.

The editor said, and I'll never forget it, "I'm not going to sugarcoat this, you need to learn to write."

I quit that day.

I called my published friend, sobbing so hard I was choking, and she very mildly reminded me that if I quit I would never see my name on a book. It snapped me out of it, and I began the next manuscript that day.

There have been other times I have quit. When I left my first agent, I stopped writing. I was tired, discouraged beyond repair. But eventually, almost a year later, I came back.

This business isn't easy. It's full of artists in a business world. Filled with people who have their eye on the bottom line, and not necessarily our tender feelings.

I get tired of it all sometimes. Want to quit. But the truth is, writing is so much a part of me now, that to make me stop, I think you'll have to bury me.