One big thing every beginning writer needs to know!

All beginning writers have to learn this one very important thing. No, it's not one's own writing style, or how to develop great characters that come alive on the page, or how to create twist and turns that keep a reader hanging onto every word you write, or how to write fantastic descriptions that suck the reader into the story with its vividness (tasting the air as one author told me). No, a beginning writer has to learn patience, which isn't as easy as it sounds. After a person has spent weeks, months, and even years learning his or her craft and writing short stories and hopefully novels, patience then becomes the number one factor in the author's life. Authors usually create their fiction in a vacuum, or all my themselves with long, long hours at a typewriter or computer screen. When a story or novel is finally completed, the child is then sent out into the world, hopefully to be accepted with opened arms and enthusiasm from the world of editors, publishers, agents, actors, and, of course, fans.

Unfortunately, it generally doesn't work like that. There are exceptions to every rule, but usually a writer sends out their story or novel to a magazine or publisher, and then waits and waits and waits, sometimes for several months to a year. When the answer finally arrives (let's hope you actually get one back because sometimes your work gets lost in the stack of submissions, or the people simply forget about you) via e-mail or letter, nine times out of ten, it's a rejection notice of the generic kind that basically says, "Thanks, but no thanks." Several months of a writer's life has just been wasted...several months or longer that can't be retrieved. What's a person to do? You can tie up years of time just sending a story or novel out through the regular channels. Of course, with e-books and self-publishing becoming the current rage, you can opt to go that route and see quicker results as far as seeing your work in print or in e-book format.

Say you do that (I did it with several of my horror stories and novellas after spending two years of circulating them to e-zines, magazines, and small press publishers). That's not to say I didn't have some nibbles and a couple of sales, but sometimes what the publisher or editor was willing to give versus what rights they wanted from you to print your story didn't quite balance out and seemed to be in favor of them and not you, the writer. So, you got to be the one to say, Thanks, but no thanks, wondering if you were doing the right right or not. Say you decide to put your stories up on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or self-publish the book through Lulu, and it's finally out there for all to read and rejoice over. The thing is you're just starting the process of being a writer and now comes the promotional aspects of letting readers know your stories are out there to buy because truth be told, hardly anybody will know about it. Your story or novel will be competing against hundreds of thousands of other stories and novels. Amazon Kindle in the United States has around 800,000 e-books on it, while Amazon U.K. has a half million e-books.

For readers to know about your story, you now have to promote the hell out of it using Facebook, My Space, Twitter, doing interviews, getting people to read it and then review the darn thing, spreading the word at conventions, giving away free copies to readers, hoping they will spread the word for you, and dozen of other things. All of this and more, and no one really knows what works or doesn't. It's all a crap shoot. You do everything you can, and then cross your fingers and pray to God, or Allah, or the Buddha, or to whomever you can thing of. But, the sales are slow in coming. It's seems like no one is reading your book, or even cares about it. What do you do? You take a deep breath and try to relax and be patient. You also keep writing because the more stuff you get out there, the more lightly you will eventually be noticed by someone.

We all want and need a plug from Stephen King or Oprah, but it probably isn't going to happen. Word of mouth, if it's spreading the good news, takes months and even years to achieve. Unless you write a bestseller that's going to have every publisher salivating at the mouth, your career is going to grow slowly. I know a lot of talented writer out there (many much better than I am at the written word) who still aren't well known and are barely making a living at their craft. Many of them had a few novels actually published and were on their way to success, but then hit a brick wall face first when their publishers suddenly dropped their contracts because they weren't selling a million copies with each new novel. It's a tough world out there folks, and the writing gig is as rough as the acting one, or the directing one, or the singing one. If you do have talent and can tell a decent story, then be patient and keep writing and putting your stuff out there.

Cream always floats to the top and s*** sinks to the bottom. It may take months and years, but eventually you'll get there, maybe not as a bestselling author (only 1% of the writers ever reach that station in life), but maybe you'll be able to support yourself (remember that writers have to buy their own health insurance and don't get paid vacation days off from work) and write full time. That seems to be a dream most of us have. Rudy Ruettiger (of the movie, Rudy, fame) says that if you can dream it and you do the necessary work, you can make it happen. So, be patient, folks, and keep on trucking!