Quit Whining

So another anthology tells you that your story was great, they all loved it, but they have to pass.

Boo hoo.

So another agent rejects your novel because you’re not part of a “underrepresented group.”

Wah.

So you get so down you can’t write for three whole days.

*sob*

So you read a new mystery and it’s terrible, awful, boring. And this is part of a series! Why does this untalented wretch find a publisher and your brilliant, sparkling work is continually ignored?

Let me call you a Wha-mbulance.

Listen. If you thought this was easy, the fifty years you’ve spent struggling to find your voice should have taught you otherwise. The literary life is rough. Unfair. Even stupid. The publishers are always looking for something other than what you offer. And when you move on to the next thing in your head, suddenly that last thing is big–but you’re looking like a follower when you try to get it published.

It has always been thus. For every writer of talent and wit like Mark Twain–who was published on his first try–there are a hundred like you, who are not quite as good as MT but better than 80% of what’s being published. That’s not your opinion. That’s the opinion of every person who’s helped you get your latest manuscript in shape.

“This is a book that should be published,” your developmental editor said. “And I don’t usually say that.”

“I love the voice of the narrator in this book. Its setting and the characters are original and fresh,” another editor says. Unfortunately, this editor is not in the business anymore. She’s just helping you as part of a conference.

So whine. Go ahead. You deserve it. You’re being put out on the doorstep like the sabertooth tiger on The Flintstones. Except you don’t have the same elan as that cat, who always outsmarts Fred.

Whine to your heart’s content. AS the present-day cliche goes, I’ll get you some cheese to go along with that whine.

But in the end it means nothing. Whining accomplishes the exact same result as writing your mother and complaining. Nothing. And you know your mother wouldn’t want to hear it, if she were still among us.

No, in fact you can hear your late mother in your head saying, “Honey, just keep trying.” Not “You’ll get it eventually,” not “You’re my favorite writer of all my children,” not “Those guys are jerks for ignoring you.”

“Keep trying.” Unlike Yoda’s famous and ludicrous comment on trying, there is trying. There’s trying all the time. You keep trying until you succeed or quit. Those are the choices, buddy.

Whining does not seem to be among them. In that Yoda and your mother would agree. Do or not do. Try or don’t try. But don’t whine about it. It annoys everyone.

Even yourself.