Perseverance and Dory

Perseverance

It might be my favorite word. I’ve blogged about it before, here (talking about querying) and here (talking about rejection).

Recently, a query godmother client emailed me about her desire to quit. She didn’t feel like she was ever going to get the query right. It just wasn’t coming together.

And I immediately replied to tell her to NOT QUIT!

It’s so easy to look around and see what feels like everyone on twitter announcing that they’ve just signed with an agent. But listen, those people have their own journey. Maybe that woman who just announced her new agent has been querying for ten years. Or maybe she’s only sent one query. You just can’t compare yourself to someone else’s process, because you have no idea.

I do know one thing. No one who quit ever published a book. 

A couple of years ago, I polled agented authors about how many queries it took them to get an agent. The results were surprising--we're talking hundreds. Years. Multiple manuscripts. The thing you have to keep in mind (and it's hard, I know, to not feel that pang of jealousy) is that you have no idea what someone else's journey is like. 

Here's the post with those results. It's not meant to be depressing, only honest. I’ll say it again, no one who gave up ever published. http://krisasselin.blogspot.com/2014/01/how-many-queries-does-it-take-to-get.html

Persevere. Keep writing. Keep querying. Keep connecting through your writing community. Keep learning, growing, submitting.

As Dory would say, “just keep swimming.”

 

 Kristine Carlson Asselin writes Young Adult and Middle-Grade fiction. Her YA novel Any Way You Slice It (Bloomsbury Spark) is currently available and her debut middle-grade, The Art of the Swap (co-authored with Jen Malone) has recently sold to Simon and Schuster for publication in 2017. Kristine is also the author of sixteen nonfiction children’s books for the elementary school library market. Kris does query package critiques under the alter-ego @QueryGodMother and loves doing school visits for kids all over New England.

To keep up with Kristine, follow her on Twitter at @KristineAsselin and check out her website at www.kristineasselin.com.