The Keys to Publishing Success -- Elasticity

Welcome to Seize the day! I'm continuing my series --- the Keys to Publishing Success. This week I'm touching on the important key of elasticity.

Elasticity is a physical property of elements to return to their original shape after they are deformed. Writers must have this property to find brilliant success.

You might be smooshed out of shape sometimes, and you will have to bounce back. I mean editors might send you excited emails, and then write back that the accountants said your book isn't viable. Said book may simply sit in your closet for umpteen years after that. Sigh. More stuff can happen. Your new book, the one you worked on for five years, may get one partial request from an agent, and the agent doesn't ever get back to you. You might be strung along by an editor or an agent, rewriting, pouring your soul into your efforts, just to face another no. You might have to shake this all off and start that next book. Elasticity, honey.

There is more to this than you think. Your vision of what being published may be smooshed into the something wholly foreign to you, and you must remold into another vision. Here's the deal. The way books are published may drastically transform in your lifetime. You may get no advance, no agent and see you book as an electronic form only, after dreaming for decades about a physical book and an advance that might buy a beater. Communities may spring up, "incubators" for new authors provided by publishers. These are places to share your work with the world with no pay to you, like American Idol for writers -- many hopefuls, few winners. Self-publishing may transform around you and become a way many authors find their way to publishing success. The bad news, you are as poor as a church mouse. You must work evenings and weekends on top of your day job to gather cash for your endeavor. Elasticity, child.

You might find that you have to reshape what your are writing to meet the needs of the marketplace. You may love writing literary fiction but have to give it up to write a little contemporary middle grade novel. Maybe you will have to take your love of folktales into space. Perhaps your wonderful Biblical story will have to have a modern day retelling. And maybe it's all over for your vampires , and you have to write about a club of sociopaths in high school who engineer the other students to suit their life-sucking needs. Your creative self must be ready to transform . Elasticity, folks.
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I hope that figure out a way to be elastic this week and turn the key of publishing! See you next week with one more key!
I'm eschewing doodles this month for pics. Here is this week's pic: "Pretty."

 Here is a quote for your pocket:

The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.  Albert Schweitzer.