When you’re thirteen writing stories on your family’s computer it’s fun. You have this unchallenged belief that what you’re writing is gold and you take it for granted that a publisher will magically see it and want to publish it making you the next J. K. Rowling! That sounds like the dream for most writers, to be found and swooshed out of obscurity and into instant fame. But what fun would that be? What do you do once you’ve become this famous author?
Of course other than Christopher Paolini, I don’t know many published authors who skipped straight to publishing novels. I imagine the journey that is undertaken when a writer seeks to make a name for herself and to one day become a published author is terrifying and exhilarating all at once.
So this is how my journey is progressing. It starts with a blog and building a following, but it can’t be about just anything. It must be clear and concise and organized with a bit of creative genius. You need to have focus so that when readers find your page they know they’re going to find what they want to read.
Hopefully you were smart in college and prepared yourself by working internships that would not only teach you what you need to know but would pad your resume to impress employers. One such internship might be at a small publishing house, doing whatever work they want you to and paying your dues. Then you can set goals for yourself like working as an editor’s assistant at a bigger publishing house based in New York, at the heart of the publishing world.
Can you picture it? Sitting at a desk in a New York office, maybe you don’t even get a cubicle and maybe your boss will work you to death and you’ll feel like Ryan Reynolds in the Proposal and Anne Hathaway in the Devil Wears Prada, but its worth it, because eventually you’ll make a name for yourself and become an editor or a published writer and all that work will have been fun. It will have made the success feel like winning a Olympic Gold!
So this is my adventure and this blog is just the beginning!
