I have to confess I have a sparse social agenda and am unlikely to be at a party. If I eventually appear at one, I usually bring one (or more) of my kids. They\u2019re good distractions for my nervousness and I need not to worry about standing awkwardly in one corner.<\/p>\n
But when I do go to one and people learn that I\u2019m a writer, the flow of the conversation usually goes like this:<\/p>\n
I usually can tell whether they\u2019re genuinely interested if they ask for the title.\u00a0(\u201cIt\u2019s Rainbirds<\/em>. Yes, rain as in the weather and birds as in the animal.\u201d) Others\u00a0proceed to tell me they actually plan to write a book someday, \u201c\u2026when I have the\u00a0time.\u201d Well, all of us writers know that we don\u2019t always have the time, but we\u00a0make the time.<\/p>\n The more brazen ones ask about my income. Funny how no one asks that question of dentists, or policemen, or teachers. (Maybe they do, but I\u2019m not\u00a0aware.) Anyway, it\u2019s no big secret. Most writers don\u2019t earn much. J.K. Rowling\u2019s\u00a0financial success is well known because she\u2019s an exception, an extremely rare\u00a0one.<\/p>\n Quite a number of people tell me how nice it is that I am able to make a living\u00a0from doing what I love. Yes, it\u2019s definitely a childhood dream come true. I feel so\u00a0thankful and blessed. But what I really want is for people to ask me about the\u00a0hard work. The sweat, the tears, and the frustration. Moments of triumph, but\u00a0also moments of disappointment.<\/p>\n Writing a novel is hard work\u2014very, very hard work. Most published novels\u00a0come from years of loving labor with no guarantee of ever finding a reader.\u00a0I started writing my first novel, Rainbirds<\/em>, in November 2013 for NaNoWriMo. It\u00a0took one and a half months to write the first draft, one and a half years to edit it,\u00a0and about a year to find an agent who found me a great publisher. The publishing\u00a0process takes another two years. Rainbirds<\/em> is finally going to be published in\u00a0March 2018. Yes, almost five years. And I was told that in my case, the process\u00a0was relatively fast.<\/p>\n The debut novels you see in bookstores might be the author\u2019s first published\u00a0novels, but they\u2019re not necessarily the authors\u2019 first novels. It might be their\u00a0second, third, fourth novel. One of the most crucial attributes you need to be a\u00a0novelist is to have patience. Plenty of it. It\u2019s a slow process.<\/p>\n Behind every novelist, there is usually a history of a long string of rejections. I\u00a0could still recall the day I checked my email and saw three rejections in my\u00a0inbox, back to back. And I cried. I cried a long time, quietly in my room. But after\u00a0I calmed down, I wiped my tears and sent three more queries.<\/p>\n Because that is what it means to pursue your dream, your passion. You chase\u00a0very hard after it, relentlessly, no matter what happens. You get knocked from\u00a0left and right, you fall down and injure yourself, but you quickly stand up and\u00a0continue to walk forward. If being a writer is what you really, really want, then\u00a0giving up is not an option.<\/p>\n The story of hard work and perseverance is one I would love to tell over and\u00a0over. If you\u2019re an aspiring writer, I hope it spurs you to work hard and never give\u00a0up. If you\u2019re an author who has gone further along in this journey, let this be a\u00a0timely reminder to give yourself a pat on the back. The industry is so hard yet\u00a0you\u2019ve done so well. Or perhaps you\u2019re not a writer and never plan to be\u00a0one\u2014maybe you\u2019re a reader, even a very occasional one\u2014I hope that the next\u00a0time you go a bookstore and pick a novel, you\u2019ll know that you\u2019ve got something very precious in your hand.<\/p>\n Clarissa Goenawan is an Indonesian-born Singaporean writer. Her award-winning short fiction has appeared in literary magazines and anthologies in Singapore, Australia, the UK, and the US.\u00a0Rainbirds<\/i>\u00a0is her first novel.<\/p>\n www.clarissagoenawan.com<\/a>\u00a0| Facebook<\/a> | Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n RAINBIRDS “The debut novels you see in bookstores might be the author\u2019s first published\u00a0novels, but they\u2019re not necessarily the authors\u2019 first novels. It might be their\u00a0second, third, fourth novel. One of the most crucial attributes you need to be a\u00a0novelist is to have patience. Plenty of it. It\u2019s a slow process.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,46],"tags":[150],"class_list":["post-502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guests","category-party-questions","tag-clarissa-goenawan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":974,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions\/974"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nAmazon<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Barnes & Nobles<\/a> |\u00a0BookDepository<\/a> |\u00a0Indiebound<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"