Reinforcements - the brave army of writers

Writers need writer friends.  Only another writer understands the discipline and the effort, both mental and physical, involved in creating and shaping a story.

I write relatively fast, but it still takes me four to six months to produce the first draft of a novel.  And often, in between this original creation, I'm suffering the slings and arrows of rejection of my other work.

There are definitely days of dark despair when it feels like I'm a lone knight trying to breach the impregnable walls of Castle Publishing and that the task is impossible.

That's when we need to call on reinforcements.  Reinforcements in the form of other writer friends who understand why we're in such a black mood when we get the next rejection.  Theyve also felt the punch to the gut, the ripping out of the heart that the word 'no' produces.

We need our reinforcements to acknowledge that ouch, yes, that rejection really does hurt.  That it really does matter, even though you have the book out with six other agents at that time who haven't rejected you yet.  We need reinforcements to witness our great loss and acknowledge it.

When we're wondering why we bother to wrestle words onto the page, we need our friends to tell us to hang on in there.  We need our friends to tells us that yes, our writing is good, we can write, we will find a home for our work eventually.

We need that affirmation that we write because we must, because that's who we are.  We're part of that brave army of writers who go out daily to skirmish with the world.  We write because we're writers, and writers write.