Advice for Novelists (Part 22)

C.J. Darlington, co-founder of TitleTrakk, is running a great series on her blog: She started a series of blog posts in which industry professionals (editors, agents, publicists, authors, etc.) share their responses to this question:

"If you could say one thing to aspiring novelists, what would you say?"

Colleen Coble had this to say: If I had only one thing to say to aspiring writers, I'd tell them not to make my mistake of writing one book then sending it out for YEARS before starting another. Finish a book, edit it to the best of your ability, send it out, then MOVE TO A NEW STORY. If I'd done that, it wouldn't have taken me seven years to be published. I had all my eggs in that one basket and was desperate to have that particular book published. When the rejections came back, I'd rework it and send it out again. And again. And again. You get the picture. LOL

You learn more about writing by writing. Reading books and attending conferences (while all good and necessary to my mind) aren't substitutes for actually DOING it.

--Colleen Coble, author of Anathema, Abomination, The Rock Harbor series, and more. Visit her online at her website here and the Girls Write Out Blog.

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