Okay, so bear with me for a minute, I’m going to talk about professional wrestling. John Cena is a professional wrestler who has been a top guy in the company for many years. He has recently been on TV less because he is off doing other things like making movies, as such he missed out on getting a match at the upcoming Wrestlemania.
Cena’s storyline (because wrestling is scripted) had him repeatedly fail in attempts over the past few months to earn himself a match at Wrestlemania, but true to his catch phrase he has refused to give up. When he was unable to earn a match through tournament competition he began attempts to call out the Undertaker (an older, but super popular, wrestler who *should* be retired but often shows up for Wrestlemania). For four shows, Cena has come out into the ring and called out the Undertaker before getting the crowd to cheer for how much they would love to see the Undertaker again.
And every week the Undertaker has refused to show up or acknowledge this call out, yet despite this failure, Cena comes out the next show and tries again. What I liked about the Cena storyline is that he tried winning his way into a match at Wrestlemania and when he failed at that, he went and tried another way by calling out the Undertaker. And despite the Undertaker’s apparent apathy for Cena’s call-outs, Cena went out on four different shows and repeated a similar plea.
I think it’s important sometimes to remember it’s not about just throwing yourself at a problem over and over. It’s about having a goal and working toward that goal in an intelligent way. I want an agent, and while I am querying, I am also working on improving my book’s pitch. I am also writing another book because perhaps The Law of the Prince Charming will not be the first of my books to be published. I am also continuing to learn more skills, put my writing process to the test and help it evolve. I might even, at some point, stop pursuing traditional publishing and look at self-publishing. There are lots of different paths I can take to the eventual goal of getting a book out there in the world.
Now the Cena-Taker match happened (because wrestling is scripted) and ended up being what’s called a squash match, ie, Undertaker won decisively, very fast. Now Cena’s goal was not to get beat, but he did get the match he wanted, but he strove for it all the same. I know all I can do with my writing is keep moving forward by continuing to learn and remaining flexible. So if you have a goal, aim for it, but don’t be so focused on it that you don’t see other paths that will lead you toward your goal. And who knows, it might not end up looking like what you were expecting, but it could be even better.
