Now That's Dedication!

By Nichole Giles

I’ve heard in so many forms and so many ways that a writer has to be dedicated in order to be published. We have to work hard, and never give up hope. And also, it’s important to have a critique group and hopefully other avenues of support and blah, blah, blah.

Well, I happen to know a few writers who are VERY dedicated.

For one thing, my online writer’s group has a yearly rejection contest. I frequently join this contest because, frankly, the person with the most rejections also usually ends up with the most acceptances. It makes total sense. And even after all those rejections, we keep pushing forward and moving on. We just don’t give up. There’s something to be said for that, especially considering that we have hundreds of rejections between us each year.

But my critique group, well, let me tell you about their dedication. Even though December was busy for everyone, we still set meeting times and most of us met. I have to admit, the week between Christmas and New Years was tough for me, but my fellow critiqurers met anyway, because they’re determined to keep moving—even during the busiest season of the year. And what’s more, this past Tuesday, when we were supposed to meet, a snowstorm hit our area. I’m not talking about a little storm, I’m talking about a storm that dumped somewhere around a foot of snow on top of the other snow we already had.

Now, if you read my other blog, you know that the roads in my neighborhood are already so bad that anyone without four-wheel-drive can’t even get out of their driveway. Since it was my turn to host, I didn’t have a problem. I got to stay home in my warm, cozy house and wait for everyone else to show up. To be nice, though, I did email them all a warning about the roads and informed them that they would be stuck by the end of the night.

Not that they believed me. When everyone finally got here, we spent a few minutes trying to decide weather they were all crazy or just plain dedicated. By the end of the night, as we were digging snow out from under two very stuck cars, the decision was unanimous. Only dedication would send a handful of people out in a massive storm to risk ice, and snow, knowing full well they’d have to push each other’s cars out of snow banks before anyone could go home. And all this at 9:30 pm.

Forty-five minutes, one fifteen-year old muscle boy, and a very kind and helpful neighbor later, (Thanks Brayden Giles and John Kelly!) we got the cars out. Keith got a face full of snow in the process, and the rest of us a few sore muscles, but everyone got home. Thank goodness. If something had happened to one of us, the rest of us would spend the first hour of our next meeting mourning the loss of one of our group.

You didn’t think we’d cancel, did you? Come on! We have books to finish.