"Write Away"...

Lynnette Horner sent me several good quotes from mystery author Elizabeth George's book "Write Away":

"You will be published if you possess three qualities - talent, passion, and discipline. You will probably be published if you possess two of the three qualities in either combination - either talent and discipline, or passion and discipline. You will likely be published if you possess neither talent nor passion but still have discipline. Just go to the bookstore and pick up a few 'notable' titles and you'll see what I mean. But if all you possess is talent or passion, if all you possess is talent and passion, you will not be published. The likelihood is you will never be published. And if by some miracle you are published, it will probably never happen again." - p253

"A lot of writing is simply showing up. A lot of writing is being willing to show up day after day, same time and same place. A lot of writing is being able to put the work first simply because it is the work. A lot of writing is being able to delay gratification." - p254

"Authors are those guys who hope to get rich quick with a big sale to a big publisher followed by a lucrative movie deal. They write the same novel over and over and they declare at the beginning of their careers that if they don't get published, they'll give it up. Writers, on the other hand, are those guys who'd write anyway. They have to breathe, after all. They have to live." - p254