kay.  Backstory here and here.

It’s an old trope.  Many aspire.  Few are published.  Why do we persist?

In my case, it’s not because I have to write.  I don’t.  I could give it up.  I didn’t start writing fiction until Avon FanLit, and I’d been perfectly happy without it.  It’s not because I love writing more than anything else, because I actually like doing a great many things, and if writing were the only thing in my life I would get dreadfully bored.  I write because it’s fun and amusing, and the point when it stops being fun and amusing is the point when I stop writing.  (Note: I am, however, also a little masochistic.  I also enjoy beating my head against the wall and doing my tax returns.)  And I write because I want to be published.
So what about those statistics?  You know, the ones that say, “You’re never going to get published?”

Well, I have no head for statistics.  Nor should anyone.  Statistics tell you about what happens to a group.  They are crap for determining what happens to an individual.  As Erica points out, there are a number of things you can do to raise your chances.  But really, it all comes down to three things:

• Write the best damned novel you can.
• Market it as well as you can.
• If you don’t succeed, ask yourself if you’ve really done one and two.

If you have, then you need to do something else.  Forget that you wrote the novel.  Forget that you love it.  Forget that you know the characters.  And pick up what you’ve written and ask yourself, honestly and fairly, “Would I buy this in the store?  Would I tell my friends they had to read it?”

If the answer is no–and if you’ve really delivered the best you can–chances are you aren’t going to get published.  But if the answer is no, chances are that you can read that novel over and say–hey, I wouldn’t buy it because of the following things.  And then you know what you need to change, and you’ll realize that you didn’t write the best damned novel you could.

And that’s why I write.  Not because I have to.  Because I’m addicted to doing things right, and because this seems like something difficult to do.  The statistics are what inspire me.  They’re what make it worthwhile.  If everyone got published–if even almost everyone got published–getting published would be like getting an A in PE.  I write because I am addicted to doing things right.  I write because I’m obsessive about details, because I can’t resist a challenge, and because I think that this is a wall I can beat down if I just hit it with my head often enough.

And let’s face it, girls.  We all write for another reason altogether.  It’s socially unacceptable to say it, because we are primed from a very early age to try and hide our talents, to demur in the face of praise, to not rock the boat and not stick out.  And that’s bullshit.  I’m going to say it, and you should, too.
I write because I think I’m good enough.