Here's to Tenacity, Resolve or just plain Stubbornness

Talk about a woman who never gives up. I recently read the novel The Help by Kathryn Stockett. The novel, which became a bestseller was also made into a movie, which did a great job of representing the book.

I was shocked when a friend shared with me this article in which Stockett herself writes about how her novel was rejected sixty times before finally getting published - sixty! Can you imagine getting sixty rejection letters stating that your book - that you poured your heart into - isn't good enough to be published. And can you imagine each time deciding not to give up, editing the manuscript yet again determined to make it better and sending it back to yet another literary agent only to face more rejections.

Kathryn writes: "In the end, I received 60 rejections for The Help. But letter number 61 was the one that accepted me. After my five years of writing and three and a half years of rejection, an agent named Susan Ramer took pity on me. What if I had given up at 15? Or 40? Or even 60? Three weeks later, Susan sold The Help to Amy Einhorn Books."

I'm always encouraged by people who try and try, even when the odds seem to be against them. This just shows that it pays to never give up on what you believe in!

As a reader, I'm so glad Kathryn Stockett didn't give up!

 

The Help, Movie Trailer