: Re: What keeps most authors writing after receiving multiple rejections? Last year, I completed a heavily researched 95,000-word novel about an emerging pandemic that targets primarily children. I am

Welcome to the world of writers. That isn't sarcasm, by the way, that's truth.

Let me tell you about my own tale, with a novel (series) called Altar of Warlords. This story has gone through a dozen major revisions, is being turned down right and left, and when I FINALLY have an agent that requests a full manuscript for her approval I'm so caught off-guard that I'm mid draft and the whole thing is a hot mess because of it.

Now, let me say that I have a nursing background, but not necessarily science (other than the obvious ties through nursing). Before nursing I was in management and IT projects (predominantly system analysis and system design). So a lot of my work reflects this, and I can make actual coding in-story look like a programmer wrote it (surprise, surprise). All the while making a death scene look like an actual death scene (not the Hollywood crap where you get stabbed in the heart and die twenty minutes later, after having relayed the plot relevant message behind the guise of plot-armour).

And yet, Altar of Warlords is turned down right, left and centre (as the saying goes). So why do I keep at it? Because I'm a writer. I have something interesting to say, I have lessons to teach, I have a story to tell.

So I will just keep on swinging until I knock it outta the park. I will keep improving my story, and I will keep improving my writing until I get that lucky swing and get an agent that will represent me.

Because I've heard stories of people getting an agent only after a decade of trying. I've heard stories of people choosing self-publishing because agents 'just don't see my genius'. There are options. But if the option you pick is traditional publishing, via an agent, and all that jazz? Then buckle up. You're now competing with the best for the limited seats available.

Riddle me this: Are you a writer? If you are, then you'll keep writing. Because that's kind of our shtick; to write.

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: Re: What keeps most authors writing after receiving multiple rejections? Last year, I completed a heavily researched 95,000-word novel about an emerging pandemic that targets primarily children. I am

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: Using big words without sounding like a thesaurus junkie I have a problem; my natural writing style is very high-brow. It often utilizes complex, flowery language. Much of the time, however,

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