As a writer, do you ever get discouraged? Feel like giving up? Ever wonder why their book made it, but yours didn’t?

These are all valid questions, but they aren’t valid reasons to give up on your writing.

We were all given certain gifts and talents in order to enhance this world and make it a better place. Now that’s not to say that signing a million dollar book deal or seeing our book on every shelf in America wouldn’t be great, but you must find success in the small things that you do.

Try to think about the small victories that your book has had and think about the good it has done. Has it encouraged someone? Maybe it put a smile on someone’s face or maybe it brought you closer to your family or to God. Remember, every positive thing that we do in this world will bring some sort of positive change to our lives.

It took me a very long time to appreciate the journey of my book. After winning three literary awards, I assumed the next step meant getting published in a major newspaper company or possibly getting into every bookstore in the world. It was hard for me to accept that quick success didn’t happen for everyone and particularly, it didn’t happen for me.

Sometimes it’s a slow process and at times it can get frustrating and even discouraging, but at the end of the day, the waiting period is where we mature as human beings as well as writers.

Now…I’m not saying that financial success isn’t important or that you shouldn’t strive for it, but what I’m saying is that you shouldn’t live for it. I like to believe that writers change the world and so if all of us stopped writing just because we experienced a little bit of failure then there wouldn’t be any future for our kids.

So again, don’t ever give up on what you love regardless of what the odds look like. Us writers must stick together and encourage one another. #WritersChangeTheWorld