Writing Prompt: Ten Years of Advice

If you could go back ten years and give yourself some advice, what would you say?

Don’t give up on your dream. Right now, you’re about two years into writing your first novel. You stay up late on weekends just to fill your pages with scenes that won’t make it into the final draft. Well, keep writing them because you love them, not because others do. You won’t get published for a long time. You’ll be 27 and you’ll still be waiting for an agent to say yes. It may never even happen, but don’t give up!

Yes. You’ll cry many tears. You’ll feel like the world hates your stories and you’ll think that those that do like them are lying to you. But the truth is: you love to write. You love the adventures with your characters, the tragedy of two who are meant to be, but never are. You love the laughter of friendship, the hopelessness in a battle no one thinks they can win, but you do it together. You love how you put yourself in the story and you won’t tell anyone how you did it.

You have an imagination that goes beyond the stars and that is more important than knowledge of any kind. You may never succeed, but you will truly fail if you give up. I believe their is a plan for every single story in your head even though I haven’t seen it yet. You will do great things. You will come up with many adventures and you’ll love every single one.

So, keep writing even when all feels lost. Write your heart into every word, keep improving, keep praying, keeping doing what you love! You will feel like the whole world is scheming to make sure that you fail. When the rejections come, you’ll feel like your dreams are too impossible to achieve, but keep pushing on! You’ve got talent. You’ve got the guts. And you definitely have the stories. Keep writing!

I believe you can get published.