I am thrilled to welcome Lesley Livingston, author of Wondrous Strange and Darklight to my blog today to talk about her writing life's principle and how it correlates to her writing. Darklight is available in stores now.Please welcome Lesley everyone!
If you had to verbalize a slogan for your life – something you live by, like a principle – what would it be and how do you correlate it with your writing.
Ha! That one’s easy. Also… well… really hard. Given a choice, the slogan I would choose to exemplify my life – especially my writing life – would be from that most awesome of movies, GALAXY QUEST:
“Never give up! Never surrender!”
For this reason:
It took me ten years (give or take) to write my first book. It remains unpublished to this day. But it taught me how to write. It took me substantially less time to write my second book. It also remains unpublished to this day. But it got me an (awesome) agent. It took me just a little over two and a half months to write my third book. I did it with a 2-book contract in hand that was expanded to 3 before I was done writing the second one. The result is the WONDROUS STRANGE trilogy.
See above quote.
This business ain’t for the Faint of Heart or the Givers of Up. You cannot be a Giver of Up if you want to be published. You have to write the book. You have to finish writing the book. You have to polish it until your fingers bleed. You have to send it out time and time again into the cold cruel world and – sometimes – you have to know when to stop doing that and write another book. And sometimes… another one after that.
That’s why I say this question is an easy one to answer – and also very hard. Because I know that’s my motto. But I can also tell you that, some days, it’s a challenge to step up (or, perhaps, sit down) and live by it. Of course, if you do manage to stick with the GALAXY QUEST philosophy, it’s always possible that you can one day use a different quote from a different (equally awesome) movie as your motto – GHOSTBUSTERS. And that quote is:
“The next time someone asks you if you’re a god… You. Say. YES!”
Words to live by! ;-)
And here's one more bonus quote for you: it's not from a movie, just something a very wise man said to me once, and it's one I tend to fall back on quite a bit as just a way of approaching the world... "Some things have to be believed to be seen".
Cheers,
Lesley
Ha! That one’s easy. Also… well… really hard. Given a choice, the slogan I would choose to exemplify my life – especially my writing life – would be from that most awesome of movies, GALAXY QUEST:
“Never give up! Never surrender!”
For this reason:
It took me ten years (give or take) to write my first book. It remains unpublished to this day. But it taught me how to write. It took me substantially less time to write my second book. It also remains unpublished to this day. But it got me an (awesome) agent. It took me just a little over two and a half months to write my third book. I did it with a 2-book contract in hand that was expanded to 3 before I was done writing the second one. The result is the WONDROUS STRANGE trilogy.
See above quote.
This business ain’t for the Faint of Heart or the Givers of Up. You cannot be a Giver of Up if you want to be published. You have to write the book. You have to finish writing the book. You have to polish it until your fingers bleed. You have to send it out time and time again into the cold cruel world and – sometimes – you have to know when to stop doing that and write another book. And sometimes… another one after that.
That’s why I say this question is an easy one to answer – and also very hard. Because I know that’s my motto. But I can also tell you that, some days, it’s a challenge to step up (or, perhaps, sit down) and live by it. Of course, if you do manage to stick with the GALAXY QUEST philosophy, it’s always possible that you can one day use a different quote from a different (equally awesome) movie as your motto – GHOSTBUSTERS. And that quote is:
“The next time someone asks you if you’re a god… You. Say. YES!”
Words to live by! ;-)
And here's one more bonus quote for you: it's not from a movie, just something a very wise man said to me once, and it's one I tend to fall back on quite a bit as just a way of approaching the world... "Some things have to be believed to be seen".
Cheers,
Lesley
Thanks for stopping by Lesley!
For more information about Lesley Livingston and her books, please visit her website here.
GREAT post. I just laughed out loud at the Galaxy Quest quest quotes, and nodded my head along with Ms. Livingston's wisdom. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteGreat interview!
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas!
Thanks so much for stopping by. It's always nice to hear when an author's success didn't happen overnight -- gives the rest of us hope!
ReplyDeleteFantastic post. I'm convinced I'm going to love her novels.
ReplyDeleteIf your first book was Wondrous Strange then it was 10 years well spent because that's one great book!
ReplyDeleteThis was encouraging. No matter how often I read about how an author has to struggle, it's always nice to hear it again. I think that sounded mean, but what I'm actually trying to say is that it helps remind me that even the careers I most idealize have their bumps and problems, too. And you just have to work through them & enjoy the parts you love most. : )
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