I was thinking last night about what it must be like to become very successful at something you really love. Something that has meaning for you.

I’ve learned this much about success – it only comes after you’ve worked at it. We read about people becoming an “overnight sensation” and like to think that success is only for the lucky few touched by Fortune. Talk to people who have made it in their chosen field and a very different story is unveiled: stories of work, planning and sacrifice. Sacrifice means giving up your other options.

I think that last point is important. My husband told me a long time ago that you “can’t fight a war on several fronts”. He thought that I should decide what I loved to do and focus on it. He was right. Like many creative people it is the process that I find stimulating. I enjoy most of the arts: acting, dancing, music, art and writing. Choosing just one to concentrate on was difficult.

I have been much happier and more productive since I focused on writing. Which brings me to my original thought. What does happen when one finally becomes successful?

When someone we have worked with, had dinner with, shared our highs and lows with gets a break it can be very confronting.

I remember years ago getting my first rejection slip for a short story competition I had entered (I was to receive a rejection slip for every competition I entered that year). This one really hurt though, because it was for a fantasy story I had written. And it wasn’t good enough!

At the same time, a good friend got accepted into a mentorship to develop a screenplay. I remember her calling me with the exciting news. I remember that at the time I was at home with my newborn son, who was on four-hourly feeds, and I was not getting much sleep. I felt so trapped in my little domestic world. I remember that stab of envy and how hard it was to swallow it, and be bright and enthusiastic for her.

How miserable I was and boy, did I have a lot of excuses for not writing!

Then one day I began to stay up late at night, after work was done and the children put to bed, to write. I attended courses and submitted writing to my peers for comment. I began to be brave. Publication will be the icing on the cake but getting the words on page matters most to me. I was surprised and gratified by that.

So what matters to you? Are you doing it?

So last post I mouthed off about publishing. Today I thought it would be fair to have a go at those of us hounding them. This is what I have read agents and publishers are hearing from writers that drives them up the wall:

1. Can you look at the first draft of my manuscript? My Mum/best friend/partner thinks it’s great!
2. I’ve got an idea for a novel. Would you be interested in advancing me the money to write it?
3. Here is my manuscript. It has a few typos and I couldn’t afford to get it edited but you can look past that to my genius, right?
4. Would you be interested in being my agent? I’ve written some poems and I have a few ideas for a novel…
5. I know this is a SF/Fantasy publication, but I’ve written a good romance short story and thought you might be interested anyway.
6. Your contract doesn’t offer me much of an advance. Surely I’m worth more than that…
7. I don’t like this contract. Why are you taking out fees? I’m the one that spent twelve years of my spare time writing this thing. I know you helped me with the distribution but come on, how much can that cost?
8. I sent you my manuscript to read a month ago. How much longer will I have to wait to receive a reply?

I’ve been trawling though various blogs and websites these last few days to pick up some tips on writing. Always a mistake. It’s as though all the existing players in publishing want to admonish us before we have set pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). I know they just want to save us some pain, but it does tickle my sense of humour. Some of the common advice sounds like this:

1. Your chances of getting published are so remote, one wonders why you have bothered to write in every spare moment of your time and left your house looking like a bomb site. Why don’t you stop writing right now? Go have a cup of tea.
2. You are not going to get published unless you have an agent.
3. You are not going to get an agent unless they ask to see your work.
4. Do not contact publishers directly as most go through agents because they don’t have time to trawl through the slush pile.
5. Agents usually have enough talent on the books already, so don’t contact them directly either unless you have previously met. See (3).
6. Do not give your manuscript to either an agent or a publisher until it so amazingly good that their assistance is, well, superfluous.
7. So you are offered, by some miracle, a publishing contract. You bastard. Do not expect your publisher to help promote it. That is now your job.
8. It is up to you to ensure that you are arranging radio interviews, signings, book launches, press releases, your web presence (twitter, facebook, blog/website) and any other marketing needed. In fact, if you haven’t presented a marketing plan to your publisher when submitting you will not have had an offer in the first place.
9. So you have done a kick-ass job of your marketing. The book (unbelievably) is now selling. A percentage of the money earned will be withheld from your sales for the assistance of the publisher and agent who, well, didn’t really do very much but they do make you look like a professional.
10. You haven’t made enough money, though, to keep the lights on. See (1.)
11. Now that we have told you all this, don’t give up. Writing is a passion, and where is life without passion?

Trying to get good at this writing business is itself a challenge. Trying to wade one’s way through the reality – the business – of publishing is another troll under the bridge. I think it takes a combination of madness and stubbornness and love to keep going. Once you start writing though – not just talking about it with your Mum, not just turning up to the odd festival or enrolling in a short course – but really writing, there just isn’t any going back. Is there?