Friendly Friday - C. Michelle Jefferies

My guest today is C. Michelle Jefferies. I'm so glad to have her post on my blog today. She's a wonderful writer and an even better friend. Welcome to Day Dreamer, Michelle.

C. Michelle Jefferies writes science fiction, a stark contrast to her rural life in south eastern Utah with six kids, house, husband, and pet birds. Although her heart resides in the stars, she has been known to be distracted by romance and the occasional vampire story.

Do You Want It?
By: C. Michelle Jefferies

Do you want it bad enough to work for it?

It’s a common thing now days to see a child or teen given something they want because we don’t want to see the tantrum or damage their self esteem. I ask you to ponder this though. If someone is given everything they want without working for it, where is the real reward of hard work? I was just talking to a friend who’s teenage granddaughter is a dreamer, she watches figure skating and wants to be a skater, she watches a movie and wants to be an actress, she wants to be famous but doesn’t want to work for her success. This is becoming more apparent as it is becoming popular to be your child’s friend instead of their parent. Unfortunately I see this as a short trip to disaster.

When I was young it was acceptable to not have everything we wanted and to work for what you really did want. I was taught if you want something bad enough that you could get it with hard work.

If you want to be a NBA basketball player you have to get a ball and work at gaining the skills necessary to be a good player. You have to play for hours every day, as well as get good grades. You can’t just walk on a team. You need to get into college and on their team to be noticed. If you want to be a skater or dancer you need to skate or dance for hours a day. Same thing about getting good grades, and doing well in school.

The same thing goes for writing, if you want to be published you have to work for it. You have to sit your butt in that chair and write. You have to learn your craft and be willing to change things that you may even love in order to make an editor or publisher happy. Writing takes money, most people have laptops and spend lots of their own money on paper, printers, and ink. As well as writers conferences and postage as they send their babies out into the world.

They also put their hearts on the line when giving their work to people knowing that it might come back looking like a “blood donation” , or someone might tell them that their babies are ugly and need work. Or that their first story is just that, a first story and therefore deemed to never see the publishing light of day.

I know what some of you are thinking. What about this author or this author? They made it in less than ten querys. While things like that happen, it’s a drop in the publishing bucket. Most people have to work for their success. It usually takes somewhere between five years and 100,000 thousand hours to get to that publishing point. Lots and lots of hard work.

While what I am saying might seem discouraging, don’t let it get to you. What I want you to gain from this is that if you REALLY want it you have to be willing to put in the hours. I know a guy who have traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to attend a writers conference in Utah. That’s dedication to his craft. I have friends who have written numerous drafts of the same story until its perfect only to revise it again because they are so close. I have a dear friend who literally took her book and split the story into two books and has started the writing process on a ten year old story AGAIN. I have had friends who have taken a first person book and changed it to third person. I myself have written millions of words and thousands of pages. This is my fifth year of writing and I feel that the hard work has paid off. I feel that I might be almost there.

If you want it bad enough, you need to work at it.

Besides, isn’t it more worth it when you have worked for it?

To visit Michelle's blogs, go HERE and then go HERE.

Thanks for being my guest blogger today, Michelle. I love your post and totally agree with you. There are far too many people out there that think this world owes them a living and aren't willing to put in the long hours and sweat to get what they want out of life. Unfortunately, paying your dues is part of the process of writing.

My guest blogger next week will be, Nichole Giles. If you'd like to be a guest, please leave a comment and let me know how to contact you. Enjoy.