The A to Z challenge is a challenge in which bloggers post every day during the entire month, and each day has a post starting with a different letter of the alphabet. The first day, the post features “A”, the second day “B”, and so on. It’s much better explained on the Blogging from A to Z website, so I’ll just refer you there.

Coincedence or not, today I picked the same word to write about as mentioned on the homepage of the A to Z Challenge: optimism. I think that, in the business of writing, optimism is a key characteristics all authors need to have, at least to some degree.

Writing is tough. A story you slaved on, or a novel you spent years on, could get rejected not once, not twice, but dozens of times. Each mail you open from an agent or publisher could reveal a rejection. And rejections, no matter how many you’ve gotten, they still hurt. They make you feel worthless, they make you feel like a bad author, and they make you depressed, sad, hurt and angry. But it’s bart of the business, and as an author, if we can’t stay optimistic about ourselves or about our work, then we’ll have an even tougher time in this industry.

Even when our manuscript gets picked up (yay!) we still need heaps of optimism to make it through the publishing process. Editing can crush an author’s soul (seriously, no matter how nice the editor, whenever I get a book back from an editor, I want to cry). The cover may not turn out completely the way we like it. Sales might be bad. Marketing sucks. But even then, we have to stay optimistic.

Optimism is a great quality for authors, but it’s tough to stay optimistic. Sometimes we just need a reminder to look on the bright side of things.