I was in the midst of doing something else yesterday when I spotted the above quote by Helen Hanson. It immediately reminded me of a letter from the editor I recently read from C. Hope Clarke. She is the author of something like 19 books in three series and the editor of the Funds for Writers newsletter. She wrote about the fact that very few people see her list of books and think, “She’s treats her writing like a job.” It is much more common for people to think, “She’s really lucky.”
And I get it. When you see the books of a successful author stacked up on the shelf, it is tempting to think just how lucky this person is.
There is an element of luck in publishing. Your work has to cross just the right desk at just the right time. If your novel about a capybara farm reaches an editor the week after they sign a novel set on a capybara ranch, the different won’t be enough to get you a contract. And if she has a pathological fear of capybaras, you will also be out of luck.
That said, if you send it in the week after her four-year-old decides that capybara are the best animal ever, she may request a full because she knows what capybara are and recognizes their awesomeness. But for that to happen, you have to have developed an idea that has a sound story structure and three-dimensional characters. Tension has to rise a the right points but also periodically back off so you don’t exhaust your reader.
All of this means that you’ve written and revised. You’ve asked people to read over your work and then you’ve combed through their comments and suggestions. You’ve rewritten and revised numerous times.
So much effort goes into making the luck possible. It doesn’t just happen. Day job. Evening job. Weekend job. However an author decides to do it, they have to put in the effort for the luck to happen.
–SueBE
One Writer's Journey 