The One Book thing has some roots in academia–when I took creative writing classes in college they were usually taught by a teacher who had…one book (published by the university press). Books, according to these teachers, were something to be slaved over, gotten drunk over, sweated out and bled on, and lovingly crafted over sweaty, extended time periods where one agonized over each sentence as if it were precious, precious diamonds…and then only shared with the “right people” as a social exercise, which would eventually possibly earn some patronage from some entity of genteel privilege who’d foster your launch into the literati.

I was not popular when I brought up subjects like Nora Roberts or Anne McCaffrey.

Literary Puffer Butt can look a lot like pretentious, too. If you come from a tradition that says, “writers do it this way,” you might be eating Literary Puffer Butt because your mentors told you it was steak.

As writers, we spend so much time wondering if we have what it takes, second-guessing our abilities, we can give up too early, even skipping the “moving on to the next shiny thing” step. YES, those MSs need to die if they stink (often that first completed novel). Moving on to that next story is what keeps us functioning.

I’ve finally gotten to the point where I’ve gotten enough OUTSIDE confirmation (and not just my mom! HA) that I need to keep putting my time and efforts into writing. I think once you’re sure this is the course you must chart, you can continue worming your way into this (dying?) publishing industry.

Will do, Melissa! And it really does help. A lot of the winners have offered trackbacks. It isn’t foolproof but it does seem to improve the odds.

Marcy it’s those 3-4 books that I’m working on at the moment. I have no intention of letting them out of my sight, I view them as I kind of apprenticeship. It was good to learn this wisdom right at the beginning of my career so that I can hopefully avoid the pitfalls Kristen describes. I need persistence of a different kind to get through this apprenticeship and then hopefully good friends who will tell me I’m not there yet. I like your approach to looking back at your first novel and seeing it as part of the wider context of life long development.

http://melissamaygrove.blogspot.com/2012/02/you-gotta-see-this-blog.html