Hold On

What advice would you give to your teenage self?

Hold on to the wonder of your dream. You started your book because a character died. You didn’t see the justice. So, you created your own story where a character like that isn’t on the “potential kill list.” You got a little obsessed when you started out, but you were excited. Nothing stopped you from working on your story through the late hours of the night. You enjoyed it. You loved your characters. Every minute of their life was put on the page to hit over three-hundred thousand words.

You believed in your story. You had no doubt it would make it.

Hold onto that. In the coming years, you’ll learn about restrictions that make a novel. It can’t be too long. It has to be perfect. You’ll receive rejection after rejection after rejection. It will chip away at you, but keep your head up. Keep the wonder of how much you love your story and the believe–despite the odds being against you–that it can make it. You know who’s hands you put it in before you even wrote a single word.

Hold onto the wonder that you created a world. That you’ve got characters you would die for (if they didn’t die for you first). Remember how they make you smile, and remember how their pain only makes them stronger. Just like you. Hold on to your story.

P.S. You’ll finally figure out where a certain wreath-wrapped character came when you reach college. You’ll be sitting on your bunk, watching Netflix, and it’ll hit you with a smile.