Being published is a bit like being entered into a race you don't even want to run, but, once running, can't help but not want to lose.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Not being published would be great. When I say that to other writers they look at me as if I'm totally insane.
We all have our notions of sport. If I'd wanted to make my living climbing mountains, I wouldn't have gone into publishing. Most of the time, you're sitting in a dark room reading a manuscript.
For me, just being published feels like success.
So long as readers keep reading and my publishers keep publishing, I plan to keep on writing. I'd have to be an idiot to be burnt-out in this job.
If you want to be a writer, you write. Everybody wants to get published. You gotta play your long game.
It's easy to get published once you have written a really good book and the hard part, 99 percent of what you need to worry about, is really finishing it.
Write a lot and don't think about publishing - just the writing.
But if I worried too much about publishers' expectations, I'd probably paralyze myself and not be able to write anything.
I write slowly by hand. Publishing is effectively bankrupt for you unless you are Danielle Steele. It takes a year to write book and advances are going down or disappearing.
I felt that I had to write. Even if I had never been published, I knew that I would go on writing, enjoying it and experiencing the challenge.