Go BIG or go Home!
I have never been the type of person to depend on anyone else, but when it comes to business, doubly so. In this business, you take care of your business or you're out! So, it is with this in mind that I write today's blog.
When I started this journey 7 years ago, little did I know what the future would have in store for me, but I knew where I was going with the book. I knew when I wrote it that it would be a movie because I saw it in my head; I simply wrote what I saw! What a magnificent way to write!
Along the way, I met many, many people who were excited about my project and wanted to be involved. Those same people became my friends and are still with me today and I thank the Creator for bringing them into my life! These same friends are helping me now pursue the things I'd only dreamed of.
When you have a dream, dream big. Don't settle for small potatoes, go for the GOLD and don't let anyone stand in your way no matter what. When one door closes another opens, and people in this business will come and go. Your dream remains. And if you stick to your guns, nothing is impossible.
Today, I am re-posting an article about the success of someone who started out kinda like I did. In fact, our stories are eerily similar....
Excerpt from J.K. Rowling bio found here:
"I had been writing almost continuously since the age of six but I had never been so excited about an idea before. To my immense frustration, I didn't have a functioning pen with me, and I was too shy to ask anybody if I could borrow one. I think, now, that this was probably a good thing, because I simply sat and thought, for four (delayed train) hours, and all the details bubbled up in my brain, and this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn't know he was a wizard became more and more real to me. I think that perhaps if I had had to slow down the ideas so that I could capture them on paper I might have stifled some of them (although sometimes I do wonder, idly, how much of what I imagined on that journey I had forgotten by the time I actually got my hands on a pen).
I began to write 'Philosopher's Stone' that very evening, although those first few pages bear no resemblance at all to anything in the finished book. I moved up to Manchester, taking the swelling manuscript with me, which was now growing in all sorts of strange directions, and including ideas for the rest of Harry's career at Hogwarts, not just his first year. Then, on December 30th 1990, something happened that changed both my world and Harry's forever: my mother died.
It was a terrible time. My father, Di and I were devastated; she was only forty five years old and we had never imagined - probably because we could not bear to contemplate the idea - that she could die so young. I remember feeling as though there was a paving slab pressing down upon my chest, a literal pain in my heart.
Nine months later, desperate to get away for a while, I left for Portugal, where I had got a job teaching English in a language institute. I took with me the still-growing manuscript of Harry Potter, hopeful that my new working hours (I taught in the afternoon and evening) would lend themselves to pressing on with my novel, which had changed a lot since my mother had died. Now, Harry's feelings about his dead parents had become much deeper, much more real. In my first weeks in Portugal I wrote my favourite chapter in Philosopher's Stone, The Mirror of Erised.
....And so I set to work in a kind of frenzy, determined to finish the book and at least try and get it published. ....I wrote nearly every evening. Then I had to type the whole thing out myself. Sometimes I actually hated the book, even while I loved it.
Finally it was done. I covered the first three chapters in a nice plastic folder and set them off to an agent, who returned them so fast they must have been sent back the same day they arrived. But the second agent I tried wrote back and asked to see the rest of the manuscript. It was far and away the best letter I had ever received in my life, and it was only two sentences long.
It took a year for my new agent, Christopher, to find a publisher. Lots of them turned it down. Then, finally, in August 1996, Christopher telephoned me and told me that Bloomsbury had 'made an offer.' I could not quite believe my ears. 'You mean it's going to be published?' I asked, rather stupidly. 'It's definitely going to be published?' After I had hung up, I screamed and jumped into the air.....And you probably know what happened next."
If it happened to her, it can happen to you, too. Don't give up the dream! Never give up!
All my best,
Lynny
When I started this journey 7 years ago, little did I know what the future would have in store for me, but I knew where I was going with the book. I knew when I wrote it that it would be a movie because I saw it in my head; I simply wrote what I saw! What a magnificent way to write!
Along the way, I met many, many people who were excited about my project and wanted to be involved. Those same people became my friends and are still with me today and I thank the Creator for bringing them into my life! These same friends are helping me now pursue the things I'd only dreamed of.
When you have a dream, dream big. Don't settle for small potatoes, go for the GOLD and don't let anyone stand in your way no matter what. When one door closes another opens, and people in this business will come and go. Your dream remains. And if you stick to your guns, nothing is impossible.
Today, I am re-posting an article about the success of someone who started out kinda like I did. In fact, our stories are eerily similar....
Excerpt from J.K. Rowling bio found here:
"I had been writing almost continuously since the age of six but I had never been so excited about an idea before. To my immense frustration, I didn't have a functioning pen with me, and I was too shy to ask anybody if I could borrow one. I think, now, that this was probably a good thing, because I simply sat and thought, for four (delayed train) hours, and all the details bubbled up in my brain, and this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn't know he was a wizard became more and more real to me. I think that perhaps if I had had to slow down the ideas so that I could capture them on paper I might have stifled some of them (although sometimes I do wonder, idly, how much of what I imagined on that journey I had forgotten by the time I actually got my hands on a pen).
I began to write 'Philosopher's Stone' that very evening, although those first few pages bear no resemblance at all to anything in the finished book. I moved up to Manchester, taking the swelling manuscript with me, which was now growing in all sorts of strange directions, and including ideas for the rest of Harry's career at Hogwarts, not just his first year. Then, on December 30th 1990, something happened that changed both my world and Harry's forever: my mother died.
It was a terrible time. My father, Di and I were devastated; she was only forty five years old and we had never imagined - probably because we could not bear to contemplate the idea - that she could die so young. I remember feeling as though there was a paving slab pressing down upon my chest, a literal pain in my heart.
Nine months later, desperate to get away for a while, I left for Portugal, where I had got a job teaching English in a language institute. I took with me the still-growing manuscript of Harry Potter, hopeful that my new working hours (I taught in the afternoon and evening) would lend themselves to pressing on with my novel, which had changed a lot since my mother had died. Now, Harry's feelings about his dead parents had become much deeper, much more real. In my first weeks in Portugal I wrote my favourite chapter in Philosopher's Stone, The Mirror of Erised.
....And so I set to work in a kind of frenzy, determined to finish the book and at least try and get it published. ....I wrote nearly every evening. Then I had to type the whole thing out myself. Sometimes I actually hated the book, even while I loved it.
Finally it was done. I covered the first three chapters in a nice plastic folder and set them off to an agent, who returned them so fast they must have been sent back the same day they arrived. But the second agent I tried wrote back and asked to see the rest of the manuscript. It was far and away the best letter I had ever received in my life, and it was only two sentences long.
It took a year for my new agent, Christopher, to find a publisher. Lots of them turned it down. Then, finally, in August 1996, Christopher telephoned me and told me that Bloomsbury had 'made an offer.' I could not quite believe my ears. 'You mean it's going to be published?' I asked, rather stupidly. 'It's definitely going to be published?' After I had hung up, I screamed and jumped into the air.....And you probably know what happened next."
If it happened to her, it can happen to you, too. Don't give up the dream! Never give up!
All my best,
Lynny
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