Climb Every Mountain

John W. Campbell, the editor of a well-known science fiction magazine, said, "The reason 99% of all stories written are not bought by editors is very simple. Editors never buy manuscripts that are left on the closet shelf at home."

I was reminded of the Campbell quote last month when I overheard an editor at the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference. She said that most of the people she asks to send her a proposal never do: a comment I have heard many times at writers conferences.

It's so hard to find a publisher who will even unlock the door, so why would a writer stay outside after a publisher has opened it? Fear of failure--or of success. Or the writer doesn't believe the publisher really meant it.

That's what happened at my first writers' conference in 2004. An editor from The War Cry read the article I handed him, handed it back, and said, "Send me a copy and I'll publish it." As I walked away, I thought, "He wanted to be nice, but he doesn't really mean what he said."

I sent the article in anyway, and he did mean it. Because I took the chance, I sold my first article and got a check for $117.

Ever since, if an editor tells me to send in an article or devotion or book proposal, I do it immediately upon returning home from the conference. (Well, not until after I kiss my husband.)

Do editors always mean it? Some may not, but I don't know until I try. That's what Mother Superior meant when she told Maria to "Climb Every Mountain."*

There's a mountain waiting for you.

Go climb it.
__________
* From The Sound of Music.

Light Bulb Successes

The waiting is killing me. The waiting for acceptances (or rejections) for two books I am currently circulating among publishers and agents.

Not that waiting is anything new. Or rejections, either. Both are normal parts of writing for publication.

According to Jack Canfield in Snoopy's Guide to the Writing Life:

Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind and Dr. Seuss's first children's book were each rejected at least 25 times before they found a publisher. 

Louis L'Amour received 350 rejections before he made his first sale; and

Jack London had it even worse, receiving 600 rejection slips before selling his first story.

I've sold over a dozen articles and devotions and one non-fiction book, so I'm doing better than many at this stage in my writing career. Still, waiting is hard, and rejections can be crushing. So to keep things in perspective, I think of each rejection as a light bulb success.

Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb, but he did make it practical. He tried thousands of filaments before he found one that burned long enough to be commercially viable. He could have given up at number 10, or 100, or 1000, but he didn't see those tests as failures. He saw them as successes because each "failure" ruled out another filament that didn't work and moved him that much closer to the one that would.

I want that attitude. Each rejection is a success rather than a failure. By ruling out another publisher that isn't perfect for my book, the rejection gets me one submission closer to the publisher that is.

These two quotes attributed to Thomas Edison explain why I refuse to give up.

Many of life's failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.

And this doesn't just apply to inventors and writers. It can work for you, too.

Yes, waiting is hard. But I'm continuing to write while I wait for that e-mail or telephone call offering me the contract that will make me the next J.K. Rowling. Because all my rejections are light bulb successes.