by Patricia Bradley, @PTBradley1
“Success is that place in the road where preparation and opportunity meet. But too few people recognize it because all too often it comes disguised as hard work.” –Anonymous
I thought of that quote as I read a blog post on the Killzone by Sue Coletta on perseverance. It’s worth the read.
I’ve met many writers who want to “have written.” You know—they’re in love with the idea of writing, but they don’t want to invest the time in learning the craft or the actual writing. Taking the scene in our head and putting it on paper is hard work. And we don’t always see the results we want. Either the words we put down are not the scene we saw in our head or others don’t recognize the genius in them. It’s easy to get discouraged.
I met a writer once who saved every rejection letter she received, over 10,000. Did it discourage her? Of course. Did she quit? No, she kept writing, and eventually landed an agent who sent her manuscripts out — six by now. One day the agent called and asked if she was sitting down. Christie asked the agent if she’d sold a book, and the
agent replied no, and her heart sank. She hadn’t sold A book, she’d sold four! Read more about Christie Craig here.
That is perseverance. Here’re a few synonyms for perseverance: persistence, tenacity, doggedness, endurance…you get the picture. Do you have the discipline to hangth thou in there? Can you write for the sheer love of writing and not money or recognition?
If not, then consider quitting because there will be days where it will be easier to choose getting a root canal than to sit behind a computer trying to coax words to the page. But if you can’t not write. If something on the inside drives you to torture yourself with deadlines and days of writing less than a hundred words, persevere. Get those words down and remember that writing is rewriting. You can make those lousy word shine like gold—but only if you’ve pushed through that muddle in your brain and written them in the first place.
You can’t edit something you haven’t written.
Natchez Trace Ranger and historian Emma Winters hoped never to see Sam Ryker again after she broke off her engagement to him. But when shots are fired at her at a historical landmark just off the Natchez Trace, she’s forced to work alongside Sam as the Natchez Trace law enforcement district ranger in the ensuing investigation. To complicate matters, Emma has acquired a delusional secret admirer who is determined to have her as his own. Sam is merely an obstruction, one which must be removed.
Sam knows that he has failed Emma in the past and he doesn’t intend to let her down again. Especially since her life is on the line. As the threads of the investigation cross and tangle with their own personal history, Sam and Emma have a chance to discover the truth, not only about the victim but about what went wrong in their relationship.
Award-winning author Patricia Bradley will have the hairs standing up on the back of your neck with this nail-biting tale of obsession, misunderstanding, and forgiveness.
Patricia Bradley is a Carol finalist and winner of an Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award in Suspense, and three anthologies that included her stories debuted on the USA Today Best Seller List. She and her two cats call Northeast Mississippi home–the South is also where she sets most of her books. Her romantic suspense novels include the Logan Point series and the Memphis Cold Case Novels. Obsession, the second book in the Natchez Trace Park Rangers series, released Februrary 2, 2021. She is now hard at work on the third book, Crosshairs.
Writing workshops include American Christian Fiction Writers online courses, workshops at the Mid-South Christian Writer’s Conference, the KenTen Retreat where she was also the keynote, Memphis American Christian Fiction Writer group, and the Bartlett Christian Writers group. When she has time, she likes to throw mud on a wheel and see what happens.