I need advice on dealing with rejection.

I need advice on dealing with rejection.

Most of my blog posts are about something I have learned along the journey of writing my book. Somethings I have figured out, mastered and now understand. However, this time I’m writing to let you know I need help. I finished my book and won NaNoWriMo for November 2013. Because I won NaNoWriMo I won a chance to submitted my book to the letsgowrimos.com contest from Lulu.com. I have done everything I could to give me the best chance at winning a top ten spot. I submitted my manuscript last night.

Was it enough? I don’t know yet. Truthfully, mathematically the chance of being chosen is slim. It's very rare, almost impossible, for a new author to get the first publishing deal they submit to. I need to prepare myself for rejection. But how?

I spent all this time telling myself I could win. How do I prepare for the chance of not winning? I know I'm full of questions today.

Anyone have any advice? Maybe you have gone though something like this. I need to learn how to pick myself up after a rejection and try again, and again.Stop by my Facebook and let me know.

<3 Amber

Picture Worth Thirty-Three Thousand Words!

Experience Is Something You Get Just After You Need It.

So the good new I have to share with you is I reached 25,000 words last night! That's my half way point! However, I learned a few good but hard lesson's as a beginner writer yesterday.

First, you do not have to be an editor to be a writer, They are two completely different jobs.

Good grammar and spelling (two things I don’t have) are helpful to a writer, but a writer is not dependent on them. I believe even the best writers need someone to edit for them.

However there are some pieces of knowledge that are helpful to have when writing. Being as I only became a writer 15 days ago now I have been doing a learn as you go approach. Because of this I learned a some hard lessons yesterday.

It all began when I started to notice I kept switching between the words “said” verses “says”. Example in some cases I would use the sentence

The boy said “Let's go.”

Or sometimes I would use

The boy says “Let's go.”

After researching and looking through some of my favorite authors who also wrote in third person (J.K Rowling) I learned I should have been using “said” all along. They mean two completely different things. You can learn more about this from this link here.

As I ran through my novel to fix all of my “says” to “said” however I noticed some of my sentences no longer made sense.

The boy stands up and says “Lets go!”

Was becoming...

The boy stands up and said “Let's go!” (doesn’t make sense)

I learned it should have been...

The boy stood up and said “Let's go!” (all past tense)

When you are writing in third person point of view and you're narrating a story that happened in the past you need to stay in the past tense.

For all those non writing friends of mine this meant I had to completely read through 25,000 words and fix three out of every five words.

It has been been a lot of work fixing everything! But now when reading a part of my book it makes better sense and sounds a million times better.

Anyone else going through anything like this? I would love to hear. Feel free to comment on Facebook! 

Amber <3