Sitting in my jail-like 6X6 cubicle, I overheard the new guy at our office, who charmed the whole lot, invite one of my team mates out to happy hour. Of course there was no sliding cell door that kept me from inviting myself. Footsteps swishes away as I wondered if I was going to be included in this exclusive outing. That would be a no.

Feelings of being the geeky, nerdy, lone Chinese kid, who people thought was smart, cheating off his paper (big mistake) came flooding back into my barreled chest. Too much? All I ever wanted in high school was to be the big man on campus. Not be smart. Psh.

Delving into the victim mindset was something I grew up with, so I knew it was just a reactionary moment of despair. Then I kinda laughed about it after drying my tears because I was meeting my mother later, and remembered that a five-year-old girl can hold her liquor better than I could. I wish I was joking. This leads me to my first point. Don’t cheat off my paper. My book smarts is limited.

One of my friends graduated from the university with a Theater Arts degree. She had showcases in New York and Los Angeles and felt she belonged in LA. She had an offer from an agent to represent her, but she declined because she didn’t feel connected to this person.

Now. To get an agent in Holli’s wood is probably just as hard for an author in Litty’s (literary) world. So I have to applaud her. In a world where the talent, yup, I’m part o’dat group, can be desperate to get representation, they’d take whoever shows a little leg. But the power comes back to the talent, still part o’dat group, when we choose who we want to be represented by. Because the whoever represents us talented must at the least love work.

This brings me to my second point. Know you’re talented.

When I researched agents, I read their blogs to find the one thing I could relate myself or my book in my query letters to them. I had found one that I liked with similar humor to me. I was like, ommahgawd, were made to be. Then I read one of his posts, which went something like this: Many people play the piano for fun and never want to play in an orchestra. Why is it that people can’t write for the pure joy of it without wanting to be published?

This guy’s world must be really small. Most of the people that I know who write, write for pure joy in journals, twitter, blogs, and have no want to be published in the traditional sense. I know very few who would venture into the publishing world. Hmm. Maybe my world is small. For some reason his comment turned me off.

Why?

Maybe because I wanted to be that popular guy who everyone looks up at. Which is hard since I’m not that tall.

“Hey. That’s Jimmy Ng! He wrote NIGHTFALL. He’s like the J.K. Rowling of fantasy.”

“Dude, man. J.K. Rowling is the J.K. Rowling of fantasy.”

“Oh, yeah,” I thought, while tapping my bottom lip.

Do I want to become popular in the high school sense? No. Do I want everyone to read NIGHTFALL? Totally. It’s a dream of mine.

But it’s an important question to ask. I wanted to write it because I thought it would be fun. It was. I want the world to read it and just enjoy the exhilaration I felt writing the book. I serve so people may have a little bit of escapism.

About a month ago I got a rejection letter from a big time New York agent.  I’d met him at the San Francisco Writer’s Conference.  He’s been in publishing for years and is an author himself.  On theagent panel,writers had the opportunity to ask them questions on the industry.  If you’re a writer, listen to it.  It has valuable information.

There was a question asked about prologues, and that agent said he hated them.  Other’s liked them, so it shows you how subjective this industry can be.

One of the most vivid images that came to me before 7th Province:  Nightfall came to being was the prologue.  I didn’t even know it would be a prologue.  The thing it did was set up the whole story and character arc, grounded the hero, and it allowed the reader to care for him.  From that scene the 7th Province world exploded.  As it happened, it was the first scene that I wrote.

Man, I remembered being extremely excited.  To this day it’s my favorite scene.

So when the agent expressed his hatred of prologues, I was stunned.  I was going to submit my manuscript to him.  What was I going to do?

The most grossest thing ever.  Yes, I used ‘most’ and ‘grossest’ in the same sentence.  I got rid of my prologue.

“What the hell are you doing?” my gut said.

“I’m succumbing to what others think about me,” I said.

I pitched my book to the agent.  He seemed to like it and asked for my first fitty pages (fifty for those who didn’t get it).  Victory!  I spent the next four weeks revising my book with no prologue and sent it off.  Four weeks later, I received the rejection letter.

For the most part, he liked it.  Then he said the one thing that kills any story.  He didn’t care about the hero.  If a reader doesn’t care about the hero, the main character, then there’s nothing at stake.  Why continue reading?

Go with your gut.  In life going with your gut, your heart, can be the most important thing you can do.  If you can’t trust your own heart, how can you expect others to?  I’ve always trusted my vision in the story.  I’ve always taken others advise with a grain of salt, rewrote when I saw fit.  But when it came to my prologue, my favorite scene, I slammed the door in its face.

Never again.

However, the only time I wouldn’t trust my gut is if my emotions resided outside of being content or happy.  If someone bumped me on the street, and I got pissed off, I’m not going to follow my impulse to beat up the guy.  That’s my ego getting in my way.  If I was happy and content, my impulse would probably be to excuse myself, and we’d go on our merry way.

Today I got my first rejection letter from an agent.  Rejection is prevalent in publishing.  But should we as writers expect it?  No.  In researching the publishing industry the one thing that is common is no one knows what makes a book a bestseller.  If the author is already successful, one who’s had traction from prior books, a fan following, then, yes, it’s one indication that the next book will be a bestseller.  Other than that, what makes a bestseller is a mystery.

So when an industry professional says anything negative about your work, what should you do?  See if the judgment has any validity.  If not, ignore it.

For those of us who love gorgeous women, Catherine Bell is a successful actress.  She’s been in hit TV shows such as JAG and Army Wives. A long time ago I saw an interview of hers, and the interviewer asked her if she had taken acting lessons.  She said yes, and then went on to say that one of her well known instructors told her that she’d never make it and couldn’t act.  Look at her filmography and tell me if she’s successful or not.

Around the same time, I watched a special on  George Lucas.  In it, either him or one of his classmates talked about one of their film instructors.  The instructor said, paraphrasing here, there was no future in film making, and they should all drop out.  What?

Not only that, but when he was making Star Wars, most of the English cast stated how ridiculous this movie was.  How it would never succeed.  That must have affected Lucas because he thought his movie was going to flop.  History tells otherwise.

One thing I’ve found with all successful people is they pursue their dream, their truth.  To me success is not only financial abundance, but spiritual and mental happiness.  Without happiness, what I believe to be the meaning of life, what good does money do?  Cause you can’t buy happiness.  The credit industry is proof of that.

The question becomes how far should we persevere to fulfill our dreams?  Or is there an end?