Here’s just one example. A number of years ago, an aspiring author decided he wanted to write a book about the key personal decisions that determine personal success. Except he didn’t want to write it in the traditional non-fiction format. Instead, he wanted to teach the concepts in the form of a story.

He spent a year writing the book, then proceeded to submit it to a publisher. It was rejected, so he moved onto the next one. Rejected again.

The author tried a third and a fourth time. Still more rejection. Pretty soon, he worked his way up to a dozen rejections. Still no dice. So he kept pushing forward, submitting the book to more publishers. This went on for another dozen rejections. Then another dozen, and another dozen still.

Then after spending three and a half years, and getting rejected by 51 publishers, he struck gold when Thomas Nelson publishers gave him a green light. That book was The Traveler’s Gift, and the author was Andy Andrews, whose books have now sold over three million copies worldwide.

Andy Andrews tried 52 times before he got what he wanted. This may sound like an extreme example, but the story of persevering in the face of obstacles is common in the publishing world. Even if you are self-publishing, you will face challenges, setbacks, and problems that require you to dig down deep and keep moving when things aren’t going your way.

This historical novelist James Michener once said, “Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.” There are a lot of writers with talent, but not all of them have the character and discipline to keep going in the face of rejection.

How about you? What are you up against in your writing? Are you willing to be persistent? How many times are you willing to try?

Because you may not have success on the third or fourth tries. It might just take 52.

The post How Many Times Are You Willing to Try? appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

One of the reasons that writing feels so hard to many people is because their expectation doesn’t match the reality of how a clean draft actually gets written.

Many people have an ideal of sitting down at a computer and just letting the words flow out perfectly. The heavens open up, birds sing outside, and a ray of light descends from above as they post their work, email it, or send it off to the editor.

That, however, is not how good writing actually gets done.

Writing is like mowing your lawn with a push mower. It’s a lot of manual labor, sometimes it’s pretty monotonous, you have to go back and get the spots you missed, and you get pretty messy in the process. While you’re mowing the lawn, you get sweaty and dirty and you can’t see the big picture. But when you’re done, you can stand back and look at your perfectly mowed lawn and appreciate all your hard work.

Good writing is created through hard work, persistence, multiple drafts, editing, and finishing what you started. This is how professionals work, and it’s how you must work, too.

Daily Question: Do you want to write badly enough that you are willing to endure the messy part of writing in order to get to a wonderful final draft?

The post How Writing Actually Gets Done appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

If someone gave you the assignment to write a sentence without the letter E, how would you respond? Would you think it’s too difficult, or that it can’t be done?

What about a whole paragraph, a scene, or even a whole chapter? And ultimately, an entire book?

It sounds impossible, doesn’t it? After all, the letter E is the most common letter in the English language. How could you possibly write a book without the letter E? It simply can’t be done.

At least, that’s what people kept telling a writer named Ernest Vincent Wright in the early years of the 20^th century. He got so tired of hearing people tell him it couldn’t be done that he decided to prove them wrong. The result was a 50,000-word novel called Gadsby, which, in fact, doesn’t contain the letter E.

To accomplish this feat, he had to tie down the letter E on his typewriter so he couldn’t use it. Yet, he met his goal. As you can imagine, a whole novel without the letter E is fairly clunky to read, but you have to respect Mr. Wright’s determination and persistence in the face of everyone telling him it couldn’t be done.

So, the next time you have a big writing goal and people keep telling you all the reasons you can’t do it, why you will fail, or how they tried something and failed, remember good old Mr. Wright banging away at his typewriter.

Unfortunately, he died in 1939, the same year his novel was published, so he didn’t get to enjoy his success for long. But he died knowing he reached his goal.

Not a bad way to go.

Daily Question: What goal do you have that others doubt can be done? Does it motivate you to prove them wrong?

The post It Can’t Be Done… or Can It? appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

One of Aesop’s best-known fables is “The Tortoise and the Hare.” You’ve probably heard the story before. The hare challenges the tortoise to a race, confident he will win by a long shot. The race begins and the hare gets so far ahead of the tortoise that he takes a nap.

When the hare wakes up, he finds that the tortoise kept moving and won the race!

We can learn a lot from the tortoise. It may take a while to get where we’re going, but if we persist, we’ll eventually get there.

There are times when you’ll feel like giving up on your writing goals. Whatever you’re working on, it’s important to be persistent and work through the problems that make it harder to reach the finish line.

Matthew Weiner, the creator of the hit TV series Mad Men, knows a thing or two about persistence. He said,

“It took seven years from the time I wrote Mad Men until it finally got on the screen. I lived every day with that script as if it were going to happen tomorrow. That’s the faith you have to have. Hollywood is tough, but I do believe that if you are truly talented, get your material out there, can put up with rejection, and don’t set a time limit for yourself, someone will notice you.”

It’s easy to get sidelined by problems on the creative journey. But you must persist and keep on doing the work you’re called to do. There’s too much at stake for you to throw in the towel.

Remember the lesson from the tortoise and the hare: slow and steady wins the race.

Daily Question: As you look at the projects you’re working on now, where do you need to be slow and steady? And what does it mean for you to win the race?

The post Slow & Steady Wins the Race appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

When you begin studying the lives of the great writers, one of the most surprising things you’ll learn is how well aware most of them were regarding their limitations and the role that luck played in their success.

For example, Ernest Hemingway once said, “I have tried simply to write the best I can; sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.” We don’t think of Ernest Hemingway as a writer who needed any sort of luck. We think of him as immensely gifted and one of the 20^th century’s most important writers.

But the truth is that luck plays a role in every writer’s career… including yours. That’s why you can forge ahead with confidence. Sure, we all need to work on our skills and craft. There’s a place for that. However, getting around the right people is also a critical part of your success. And sometimes, we just get a stroke of luck and happen to write something that jives with the public’s consciousness at just the right time.

The best part, though, is that you have a large measure of control over how much “luck” comes your way. Spend time around the right people, work on your craft, be persistent, and don’t take yourself too seriously. Then you’ll just happen to get lucky a lot more often.

Daily Question: What are the habits or practices that help you become more “lucky” in your writing success?

The post What’s Luck Got to Do With It? appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.