Talent & Grit

Though I love to write and I’m working hard to publish my first novel, my day job has little to do with my writing world. Yes, my flavor work has taught me so many ways to describe the taste and smell of things, which in has turn improved my descriptive writing; but overall, writing and flavors don’t often overlap. Then, once in a while, something happens at a flavor meeting that impacts my writing world.

At this point, the flavor meeting I’m writing about was weeks ago. (I meant to blog about it sooner, but contests, etc. got in the way.) We were meeting because we’d won a huge beverage project. The weekend before, the woman leading the meeting had read a newspaper article about talent and grit that she brought it in for us to read. Her point with the article was that we’d had the talent and grit necessary to win this huge project. I don’t know for sure what newspaper the article came from. I can’t tell you for sure what it was really about. I’ve done Google searches, but to be honest, our discussion quickly left the article and moved onto our own examples, both in and out of the flavor world. The focus of our discussion? What does it take to be successful: talent or grit or some of both?

I’ve been thinking about this ever since.

In order to get a book published, I have to have some talent. Talent, for the sake of our flavor meeting discussion, was innate. You had to have been born with a certain level of talent, we said, in order to be successful, no matter what you were doing. I love what I write, which is a start. I’ve received an amazing amount of feedback in the last few weeks that indicates I have some innate talent. Good thing, otherwise this quest would be so much harder. This isn’t to say, as we discussed in our flavor meeting, that you can’t have success without innate talent. Talent can be taught, as I’m learning with all this writing feedback from contests and my critique partners. Still, it makes this whole writing quest a lot easier if you don’t have to learn everything. Talent.

In order to get a book published, I also have to have some grit. For our flavor meeting, we defined grit as putting as much effort into something as you had to in order to get what you wanted out of the experience. This is huge. This is what my last few months have been all about. If I didn’t have grit, if I didn’t have the determination to get a book published, I would have given up after that first day. I’ve sent out queries for FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE and been rejected and rejected and rejected. I’ve gotten partial and full requests for my MS, but didn’t get an agent from those. I’ve entered WORLD’S EDGE into two contests and didn’t get into either. I’ve spent months and hours and hours writing and editing and helping other writers who in turn help me. I’ve rewritten and deleted and kept at it. Neither FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE nor WORLD’S EDGE has gotten an agent, and without an agent, it’s nigh impossible to get a book published. It could take years to finish this quest, but I’m not giving up. Grit.

The point for me? It takes both talent and grit to get a book published. I’ve got the talent, though I’m honing it daily. The talent part is easy (well, you know, as easy as something like this can be). It’s the grit that’s the hard part. I have to keep going no matter how many times things don’t happen or don’t go my way. I have to keep at it, keep at it, keep at it. Publishing a book is a rough business and I’m going to need all the grit I can get to get it done.