Devoted to publishing, publishers and to those who craft the written word

In novelist Heather McElhatton's City Pages profile, the author grimly describes your life before publishing her first book: "35 years old, living with her mother, having just heard from her agent, 'Honey, there just isn't anywhere else to send it.'"

If that description doesn't give you the shivers about your own writing career, then you are either a trust-fund baby or a bank robber who writes books on the side. Writing is a hard, thankless, low-to-no-paying job, and it is hard to know how to survive the lean years.

This week McElhatton is our special guest, explaining how she survived that early-life crisis and wrote a choose-your-own adventure book for adults. Her twisty book Pretty Little Mistakes lets readers actually choose where to take their heroine over the course of the book. 

Jason Boog:

How did you survive this frustrating time? What's your advice for any writer hoping to cope with "the grueling tar pits" that all first-time writers face in this crazy writing business?

Heather McElhatton:  
You survive it because you have no choice. Continue reading...

It's like you're trapped under ice and you survive on random pockets of air at the surface. You use whatever you have to get by.

Single moments can sustain you. Moments with friends, pets, nature, favorite TV shows, cocktails, other people's writing, poetry, chocolate, whatever you have to survive on,  use it to get to the next day.

That's all you have to do. Get to the next day.
 
My other advice is to never stop, and to believe you can walk on water.  Why not you? Why not your manuscript? They have to publish somebody, or there would be tumbleweeds on bookstore shelves.

Don't read articles about how hard it is to get published. Ignore them. Don't listen to people who tell you how hard it is to get published. Ignore them.
 
Just do your work every day, and never give yourself a day off. Don't let up on yourself and don't take it easy. Don't relax.  Don't give yourself a single excuse for not writing. This is a war with yourself and the only way to win is to show up every day ready to get bloody.