It is now just over two weeks into the New Year and the
shining new resolutions look far less shiny and bright. It is far easier to
fall into old habits and to think you can never change. This is not true and it
is your limbic system (the flight or fight part of the brain) speaking. Meaningful
change never just happens. There is always false starts and falls off the
bandwagon. The people who make the changes permanent do so because they see the
change as being important, rather than the fall. They don’t see it as a perfectionist all or nothing. It
is more about the overall picture and trying until you succeed..
When I first became serious about my writing, the easiest
thing would have been to give up. In fact, various people suggested that I would. After all, I had wanted
to be a writer from the age 12 and there I was 38, never having written a
complete manuscript. I would get to about the first page, not even
the first chapter and find something else to occupy my time but oh how I wanted
to be a published author. I knew I had stories to tell inside me. I knew I
could write.
Getting ill with gallstones
changed me. It made me realise that I wanted to do something for me. Equally I didn’t just sit down in three days
and write a novel which was instantly accepted. It took me several months and
then I received a form letter in the post so fast from Harlequin/Mills & Boon,
it made my head spin. However, getting that form rejection letter really
spurred me on. My immediate goal became — the next time, they will not be able
to dismiss me that easily.
I went back to basics and wrote another manuscript and sent
it off. It was over Christmas and I hoped for a slow response. It was a quick
one — a request for the full manuscript from a proper editor. That one was
eventually rejected as well, but next one (a hugely revised version of my first
manuscript) went to revisions and I gained an editor who was willing to work
with me and answer questions. It took
several more manuscripts and a change of series to Historical (the editor was
hugely support of this) for me to sell to Harlequin. By that time, the editor had left the company
after giving the manuscript we had worked on to her senior editor. I then had a very long wait of nearly a year
while the manuscript was reviewed and then revised. Since June 2005, I have written 27 more books
which Harlequin Historical has purchased. I am currently waiting on my editor’s
thoughts for the 28th one and there is more to come.
If I had given up at the first hurdle, at the first
rejection or when the words became tough in the first manuscript, none of this
would have happened. So if you feel overwhelmed by not fulfilling your New Year’s
resolutions, start afresh today. Make the change happen. It may lead to
something wonderful. Persistence worked for me.
Michelle Styles writes warm, witty and intimate historical
romance for Harlequin Historical, her latest Sent as the Viking’s Bride is out
now. Visit Michelle Styles’s website www.michellestyles.co.uk for more information about her and her
books.
Read a little of Sent as the Viking's Bride.
