"Keep at it"

I spoke with my major mentor the other day. He has not mentored my fiction writing but just about everything else, being especially helpful in my non-fiction writing.

He's the winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

Yes, I'm dropping names, sort of, because not many people can claim to have a Pulitzer-prize winner as a mentor. He was especially helpful, though, in guiding the kinds of books I should read. As I've noted several times, reading is hugely important to writing.

Check out Pat Conroy's new book, "My Reading Life," as an example. I hear it is quite good.

He asked, as he always does, about my efforts to get published. I gave him, as I always do, the same answer.

"Keep at it," he said. "That is what I would tell you. Just keep doing it."

Though I can get discouraged just like everyone else, I think that is sound advice and I intend to follow it.

I should note that he absolutely hated my first novel, Vivie's Rock. He couldn't even finish it. He's the only one who had that sort of reaction. Others may not have loved it, but at least they could finish it!

Not only is he a mentor, but a painfully honest one, at that. Priceless.

Rejection project status: 32,272 words in 114 pages.

Yours in rejection,

Phil