Days of Inspiration for the New Year!

"Your will shall decide your destiny." -- Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

A creative life is not for the faint of heart, at least not if you want to make a living at it. If you balk at the first hurdle, if your stomach sinks at the thought of a thousand rejections, if your soul shrinks at the anticipation of struggle and hardship, then you may as well step aside now and save yourself the pain.

If you want to do anything out of the ordinary, anything remotely challenging, where the odds are decidedly out of your favor, then you must have great strength of will. You must be stubborn. Bull-headed. Dogged. Tenacious. Determined. Resolute. Stalwart. Steadfast. Unfaltering. Committed.

It's perhaps a sad truth that talent comes second to tenacity, but it certainly seems to be true. It's best to know and accept this going in rather than bemoaning it later. So, if you're setting out to write and publish a novel, or something equally great, then you'll have a lot more fun with along the way if you find your inner sense of steel first!