Growing up I always loved basketball. Not so much playing the game--there's not a lot you can do at 5'4", plus I pretty much suck--as much as watching it. To this day I don't really know where I got that from. My dad was never really that into it, and there was no one else I knew who affected me enough to make me love the game. But I've always been a huge basketball fan.
As a kid of six or seven, I had two favorite teams. The New York Knicks--because that's where I'm from--and the Chicago Bulls, because of Michael Jordan. I think he really was one of a kind, the kind of player that doesn't come around twice. I've always admired the way he played. The sheer talent. His face would light up on the court and when he jumped up for one of his famous dunks he'd fool every single person into believing, just for one second, that he could actually fly.
I don't think I really need to go on about him. I'm not an expert, for one, and more importantly, I don't even need to say more. Everyone knows how incredibly talented he was, how he left a mark in basketball history in a way I don't think anyone else ever will. Everybody knows he was one of the (if not THE) best basketball players of all time.
But what most people don't know is how hard he worked at becoming the incredible player he was. He won so many championships, made countless winning baskets at the last second on the clock, and was the undisputed go-to man at all the tough moments in the game. But that's not the only side to him.
In his own words:
“I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
And that, I think, is what all writers need to remember. You write a story, rewrite it, write it again and again and again. And then you hate it. You throw it in the trash, feed it to the fire, stash it in a trunk in the darkest corner of your dusty attic, never to see the light of day again. And then you write another story. You rewrite it. Edit, edit, edit. At some point, maybe three of four cycles of this later, you finally have a story that's ready. This is it! This is the one. The one that will land you that dream-agent, the one that will take you to the top.
So you start querying. But hoooold up. Because FIRST you've got to get your query letter in order. You think, "Two hundred and fifty words? Psh. Piece o' cake."
And. It's. Not.
You spend ages--ages--perfecting that damn letter, writing and rewriting, editing and tweaking and deleting the whole thing and starting all over again. Until . . . *cue angels singing* it's READY! The query letter is golden, so is your book, and now it's time to send it out.
And so you do.
You press send and let your baby out into the world, full of hope and big-eyed
naiveté, expecting a flood of requests for the full, expecting a flood of agents begging to sign you on.
Instead, you get rejections.
One after the other. Another and another and ANOTHER. So you cry and consider throwing your laptop across the room and spend the next few weeks telling anyone who will listen how nobody understands your work, and why won't anyone recognize your genius?
But life goes on, as it must. You wipe away the tears, decide to take a more mature stance, decide to maybe take another look at your work, see if there's something you and your critique partner(s) might be missing.
And in any case, you steel yourself. You know you've got something good here. Because you really have gotten your work to a point where there's nothing more you, alone, can do with it. You know it's just a matter of time before the right agent will read it and fall in love with the prose, the characters, the story, just as you have. You know they will connect to your book in a way no one else has, and you'll know you've finally found the one for you.
It might take years. It might take decades. But when you've queried your forty-seventh book and finally found the most amazing, jaw-droppingly-awesome, funny, supportive, talented agent who is as enthusiastic about your work as you are; when the story you cried and sweat and bled for is finally IN BOOKSTORES; when people are writing to you, thanking you--you!--for that wonderful story you typed in secret, almost-embarrassment, between the hours of midnight and one a.m., after the kids were in bed and work was over for the day, and you shake your head and you pinch yourself because you can't believe anyone could possibly have loved it--that's when you'll know:
Michael Jordan was right.
As a kid of six or seven, I had two favorite teams. The New York Knicks--because that's where I'm from--and the Chicago Bulls, because of Michael Jordan. I think he really was one of a kind, the kind of player that doesn't come around twice. I've always admired the way he played. The sheer talent. His face would light up on the court and when he jumped up for one of his famous dunks he'd fool every single person into believing, just for one second, that he could actually fly.
I don't think I really need to go on about him. I'm not an expert, for one, and more importantly, I don't even need to say more. Everyone knows how incredibly talented he was, how he left a mark in basketball history in a way I don't think anyone else ever will. Everybody knows he was one of the (if not THE) best basketball players of all time.
But what most people don't know is how hard he worked at becoming the incredible player he was. He won so many championships, made countless winning baskets at the last second on the clock, and was the undisputed go-to man at all the tough moments in the game. But that's not the only side to him.
In his own words:
“I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
And that, I think, is what all writers need to remember. You write a story, rewrite it, write it again and again and again. And then you hate it. You throw it in the trash, feed it to the fire, stash it in a trunk in the darkest corner of your dusty attic, never to see the light of day again. And then you write another story. You rewrite it. Edit, edit, edit. At some point, maybe three of four cycles of this later, you finally have a story that's ready. This is it! This is the one. The one that will land you that dream-agent, the one that will take you to the top.
So you start querying. But hoooold up. Because FIRST you've got to get your query letter in order. You think, "Two hundred and fifty words? Psh. Piece o' cake."
And. It's. Not.
You spend ages--ages--perfecting that damn letter, writing and rewriting, editing and tweaking and deleting the whole thing and starting all over again. Until . . . *cue angels singing* it's READY! The query letter is golden, so is your book, and now it's time to send it out.
And so you do.
You press send and let your baby out into the world, full of hope and big-eyed
naiveté, expecting a flood of requests for the full, expecting a flood of agents begging to sign you on.
Instead, you get rejections.
One after the other. Another and another and ANOTHER. So you cry and consider throwing your laptop across the room and spend the next few weeks telling anyone who will listen how nobody understands your work, and why won't anyone recognize your genius?
But life goes on, as it must. You wipe away the tears, decide to take a more mature stance, decide to maybe take another look at your work, see if there's something you and your critique partner(s) might be missing.
And in any case, you steel yourself. You know you've got something good here. Because you really have gotten your work to a point where there's nothing more you, alone, can do with it. You know it's just a matter of time before the right agent will read it and fall in love with the prose, the characters, the story, just as you have. You know they will connect to your book in a way no one else has, and you'll know you've finally found the one for you.
It might take years. It might take decades. But when you've queried your forty-seventh book and finally found the most amazing, jaw-droppingly-awesome, funny, supportive, talented agent who is as enthusiastic about your work as you are; when the story you cried and sweat and bled for is finally IN BOOKSTORES; when people are writing to you, thanking you--you!--for that wonderful story you typed in secret, almost-embarrassment, between the hours of midnight and one a.m., after the kids were in bed and work was over for the day, and you shake your head and you pinch yourself because you can't believe anyone could possibly have loved it--that's when you'll know:
Michael Jordan was right.
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