“Stephen King wrote four books before Carrie was published, and that’s not uncommon. I’m not sentimental enough to say that years of being brusquely dismissed or apologetically rejected somehow improved me, but I can honestly say it was worth it. You have to believe good work will find a home.”

So, my latest (and probably best) piece, “How I Published My First Novel Against All Odds’ is now up at Thought Catalog.  I don’t remember writing that title, but I do remember an AWP panelist a few years ago saying something like, “There are a lot of books out there, so it takes a while for the cream to rise to the top.”  It’s not my place to say how creamy my novel is, but as someone who was fighting for a publication slot, I can say that the competition out there is pretty fierce.  Just the numbers alone….  But in my TC article, I describe what it’s like to wait while people are making decisions about your work.  Hopefully it’s more heartening than terrifying, but I do think that writers–especially aspiring novelists–deserve to know the truth.