Advice from Betsy Lerner

I’m sort of stuck on what to blog about next. I could do Q and A if people want to send me questions. If so, don’t respond in the comment section. Email your question to me at [email protected]

In the meantime I’m going to offer up a quote from The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers by Betsy Lerner. It’s an excellent book so far. (I’ve only read the first two chapters).

In the paragraph that follows, the author has just written about whether “natural talent” is inborn or not and now relates that to aspiring writers who eventually give up.

Some let the dream go gracefully. Others do not go gently, attempting to write over the years, beginning journals only to let them lapse, showing up for a writing workshop only to disappear after the first session. If this describes you, it does not mean that you lack ability, though it may mean that you lack ego. But if you can’t give it up, if hearing how impossible the odds are only makes you dig in deeper, it doesn’t really matter if you have natural talent. Your job is to marshal the talent you do have and find people who believe in your vision. What’s important, finally, is that you create, and that those creations define for you what matters most, that which cannot be extinguished even in the face of silence, solitude, and rejection.

By way, if you’re on Facebook, please “friend” Harvest House Publishers. Lots of good posts there too.