“There’s a wonderful old Italian joke about a poor man who goes to church every day and prays before the statue of a great saint, begging: “Dear saint. Please, please, please … give me the grace to win the lottery.” This lament goes on for months. Finally the exasperated statue comes to life, looks down at the begging man and says in weary disgust: “My son. Please, please, please … buy a ticket.”
~Elizabeth Gilbert
So much of what we achieve in this world is completely dependant upon our efforts. They say that success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration — which means, especially in the book publishing world, that for every hour we spend writing, we need to spend nine more hustling to get our work published.
I once heard a motivational speaker who said that when the space shuttle launches, 90 percent of its energy and fuel is consumed in the effort to just get it off the ground. I love that analogy and how neatly it ties in with the 10 percent inspiration/90 percent perspiration quote.
I’ve been doing just fine on the inspiration part. The writing gods have been kind, and I’ve made plenty of progress on both my new novel LAST DREAM OF MY SOUL as well as several freelance (i.e., paid) magazine assignments. But poor SETH … he was feeling a little sad.
On a complete whim, I entered my query (submission letter) and first 250 words of SETH in a Twitter contest called #QueryKombat. It wasn’t easy for me to bite the bullet and hit submit, because my confidence in my debut novel has been wavering as of late. (So. Many. Rookie. Mistakes!) Imagine my shock and surprise when my SETH entry was not only accepted into the contest (one of 64 “kontestants” amid 350-plus entries) but made it successfully through two rounds of “kombat” !!
I was also blown away that two agents (both of whom are definitely on my A-list) requested the full SETH manuscript. This was a shot of confidence that I sorely needed. One I didn’t even realize how much it was sorely needed! Riding this high, I entered another Twitter pitch contest with my dream (yes, DREAM) agency in Denver, Colorado. Lo and behold, one of the agents asked to see pages! I fell to my knees in tearful gratitude.
There are a lot of ways to get what we want in this world. Few and far between are the people who are handed success on a silver platter whilst standing idly by on the sidelines. It was a leap of faith outside my comfort zone to enter these competitions, and another leap to send my SETH pages out to the six (yes, six!!) agents who asked for them. But I’m learning that the only way to get what you want is to make that leap and say that prayer. Or, in the case of our poor Italian friend, buy that ticket.
**For more on #QueryKombat, check out the blogs of the hosts: Michael, Michelle and Laura. And buy their books!!