Perseverance - as someone once said, that's the main difference between those who make it and those who don't. Those who do, are those who never gave up.

I'd really like to track down who said it. It was someone who made it, and was asked how it was. Was he a genius? What trick did he have up his sleeve? What did he know about the public that he could teach us?

The reason I need this wisdom is that I have come to doubt that I have that much more than anyone else in any of the other great writing categories. Skill, ability to craft a story, genius, overriding ability to see it the way the reader would see it - and then that's not to mention the formal teaching of such things as novels (I've had none) which many of my fellow writers have had but which I have pretty much spurned over the years. I'm playing with an untutored mindset and I'm in the pro leagues but I'm looking at shutout scores and somehow I'm surprised, why, because it's hard to make people see you out there? It's taken me a long time to figure out that starting from the bottom really makes a long journey.

Marketing by reading is really kind of limited. It's a lot of work to get one ratings bump, if you're not a big fan of fantasy, or romance, or whatever is out there. I'm finding it's slogging on me. And yet, also, I'm somewhat drained when it comes to what I'm actually producing. Nothing I've done lately has made it all the way to the edge of being publishable.

Hard marketing has at least given me some good numbers right before the buying season, and that's something to be proud of - I'm not sure I can keep them right through December, but at least I look a little more like an up-and-coming writer, and that's something to be grateful for.

More than that I'm grateful for the fact that I've made a lot of friends out there. If I quit today I at least have a lot of people I can count as genuine friends, spread literally around the world. They are like me, slogging out the novels, cranking out something or other, trying to maintain some semblance of marketing with what they have. I'm sure they can relate to my anguish.

Persevere! What choice is there, give up?