Believe in Yourself

In a recent interview with Claire Applewhite, I was asked what I'd tell anyone who wants to get published and who feels discouraged.

I think the most important single bit of advice I can give is, YOU must believe in your dream long before anyone else does. And you need to hold onto that dream even when everyone around you gives you that "yeah, sure" smirk. Because we are all "wannabes" before we are authors.

Let's face it. When you go to any writers conference, you'll see there's a definite pecking order. As nice as people are, they still seem to operate in a sort of unspoken class system. Even though I'd written ten non-fiction books, at every conference, I felt like the last kid picked in kickball. At the top of the food chain were multi-published bestselling authors. In the middle were those who had series that were doing okay. And then chumming around at the bottom of the ocean floor were those of us who'd never been published...in fiction. All my non-fiction work didn't count for much.

I still recall those who treated me then as though I had value. I also remember those who pranced about and talked down to me.

How they acted didn't matter. Not really. Because you see, I had a dream. I was going to keep on working at it until my dream came true. I had to believe in myself first, before anyone else did. And you do, too.