>>> Item number 24112 from WRITERS LOG9401C --- (27 records) ----- <<< Date: Sat, 15 Jan 1994 18:35:02 JST Reply-To: WRITERS Sender: WRITERS From: Mike Barker Subject: TECH: Hah! From Writer's Digest, January 1994, p. 6 - an article about Thom Jones (1992 O. Henry award winner, etc.) A couple of years ago, Jones says, he got "sick and tired" of being rejected. "I felt like, 'I've got nothing to lose. I'm just going to write what I want to write. I'm going to write a story that I'd like to read.' As soon as I did that, things changed." ... Then, on a whim, he submitted it [his award winning story - rejected by the literary journals and small press] to _The New Yorker_. "I thought I might as well be rejected by them, too," he recalls. Instead, the magazine accepted the story, and Jone's career was launched. [my note - he had been writing for 30 years without publication! with an 8 year "block" from despair!] Moral (Let me pound that point home!): KEEP WRITING! NEVER ASSUME YOU CAN'T CRACK THOSE TOP MARKETS! It does happen. (ya gotta believe!) tink