PERSEVERANCE

PERSEVERANCE by Kathy Ivan

per•se•ver•ance 
noun
Steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.

Synonyms
Doggedness, steadfastness. Perseverance, persistence, tenacity, pertinacity imply resolute and unyielding holding on in following a course of action. Perseverance commonly suggests activity maintained in spite of difficulties or steadfast and long-continued application: Endurance and perseverance combined to win in the end. (dictionary.com)

This afternoon I went to the annual Buns and Roses Tea for Adult Literacy. This event is held every year to raise money to fund further education and help adults and children learn to read. A most worthwhile cause. New York Times and USA Today bestseller Jodi Thomas spoke. She's a fabulous speaker and talked about her road to publication. As she spoke the above word kept popping into my head over and over.

Perseverance—It's what she had. It's what each and every one of us needs to have day in and day out as writers.

Read that definition again. It's the perfect description of a writer, whether published or unpublished. In spite of difficulties. In spite of obstacles, even in spite of discouragement or maybe in some cases because of discouragement. We persevere. We write the next word, the next sentence, page, and chapter. We maintain our course when life gets in the way, when we have a headache, the job wants to take up all our time and energy, or the kids have so many activities you begin to feel like a taxi service.

We plow through when we get rejection letter after rejection letter. We maintain our love of writing even when the contest judges' scores tell us we aren't good enough.

We PERSEVERE. We ENDURE. We WRITE. We do it because there is one person out there waiting for that special story you and only you can tell and if your story touches just one single person, it makes it all worthwhile.

We have a story to tell. We have characters to breathe life into, heroes who are larger than real life, and villains so evil they make our skin crawl. Nobody else can tell your story better than you can. As the line from the movie Galaxy Quest goes--Never Give Up, Never Surrender. As writers, that's what we do--never quit.