Fate Intended Tour: Elizabeth Talks about the Hard Stuff (In Writing) and Success

Please Note: There will be no post on Tuesday. Wednesday will be a book review and Thursday and Friday will have the usual posts.

Today I'm excited to welcome Elizabeth Seckman and being the latest stop on the Fate Intended Tour! Now I give the floor to today's feature author. Take it away Liz! Enthral us Blogger sista! Okay, I'll let you take over now. *Disappears in a puff of smoke*

I hate to see writers burn out. My writing dream started
over ten years ago, and in that time I have met a lot of writers. Some move on
to success, but many give up and drop out. 

The drop outs didn’t fall away because they had no talent.
There was plenty of talent. 

The problem: writing is work. 

Hard work. 

There was a time when I thought I could only be a writer if:

1.    
I could write a perfect manuscript in a couple
of days.

2.    
I could edit and polish that manuscript as
quickly as running spell check.

3.    
Agents and editors tripped over themselves to
hand me a contract.

4.    
My platform built itself like one of those
inflatable life rafts.

5.    
My published book sold by word of mouth. 

That sort of thinking nearly ruined my love of writing. I
had those preconceived notions that if I wasn’t hitting those brass rings
(quickly!), I wasn’t ever going to grab one. And only holding one of those
shiny little devils would prove to myself and the world that I was a writer. 

Then one day, I was watching a biography on Sean (PuffDaddy; P Diddy) Combs. Seems Sean dropped out of college with a dream of
breaking into the music industry. To get his foot in the door, he begged for an
Uptown Records internship…which means working for free. He said he was given
every crap job in the place…got pruned hands washing the executive’s cars. After
a while, he was hired on, and then fired. 

Yep. Fired. Canned. Ditched. 

But getting tossed didn’t make him quit. He didn’t say, “Well,
Uptown records rejected me, so I guess I suck…better go back to college.” 

Nope. He didn’t quit. He started his own record label, Bad
Boy Records. 

The rest is history.

The lesson? If you NEED success, you have to work hard,
climb out on some limbs, and get just a little lucky. Writing, blogging,
editing, marketing, networking…they are skills and they are learned and
practiced. 

Now, notice I said if you NEED success. 

You don’t NEED to be successful to be a good writer. 

Emily Dickinson was a masterful poet, but not once did she
hold a book of poems in her hands. She didn’t need the validation of a check to
call herself a writer.

I mean not every person who loves to make music makes it to
the Grammy’s, but who’s to stop them from playing gigs on Saturday nights? 

If it gives the soul joy, do it. If the NY Times list is the
only goal, then get to work. Every rejection and door closed in your face just
makes for a better biography later.

Fate Intended is the
third book in the Coulter Men Series.  Trip is the last of the Coulter
sons to find love. He’s a handsome man with all the skills a young spy
needs to succeed. But when it comes to love, he misses the target. Jane
is a sweet beauty who may or may not be wanted for murder. She’s hiding
out as a cleaning lady when chance brings her and Trip together. It
looks like a happily ever after is in the cross hairs until reality
tries to destroy what fate has intended.

Elizabeth Seckman is a simple chick with a simple dream…to write stories people want to read.

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