Attrition, or Is Time Really on Our Side?

I don’t know this for a fact but it seems to me that most people successful in the arts usually get there from sheer staying power. It’s nearly impossible to sprint to recognition and success. It’s always a marathon so it would be wise to pace yourself.

All the emerging writers I come across, the ones who are really making it, well they’ve been at this writing thing for years, some of them decades. At any given time in the writing scene look around and you’ll see hundreds of struggling writers. A year later if you look around again you’ll still see hundreds but there’s lots of new names and lots of people who’ve disappeared.

I’m starting to feel the publishing biz is the same. There are always new magazines, ezines and publishers starting up but at the same time there’s lots closing down too. The key is to be able to hang on and make it through those first few tough years and to do that you’ve got to pace yourself. If you set a ragged pace in the beginning you’ll be exhausted well before year’s end.

I say this to convince myself and as a reminder. Things have been on an upswing lately and I want to write this down now so I can come back to it whenever things aren’t working out. It’s attrition, it’s whoever can stay in the ring long enough. Do what you have to do to stay in the ring. If that means taking a breather, so be it. I don’t have much time to watch wrestling anymore but I heard Chris Benoit won the Royal Rumble and that gives me hope for all the underdogs out there.

current mood: determined
current music: Tabula Rasa by Einsterzende Neubauten