A Joyful Refrain

By Keith N Fisher

One of my best friends is having a party. After suffering discouragement and going through extreme rewrites, Nichole Giles is launching her book, Descendant, today. It’s actually been available for a while, but it’s time for the big party at King’s English Bookstore 1511 South 1500 East Salt Lake City, Utah from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm.

The book, published by, Rhemalda, has gone through many changes since Nichole brought it to critique group. Nichole has, too.

This is not meant to be a book review. I do those on another blog. I want to tell you something about the author, and provide food for thought about your writing.

As I mentioned above, Nichole is one of the original members of the Super Edits critique group. We all came together when I realized my need for help in my writing and I sought out a few of my friends at an LDStorymakers Writer’s Conference, the rest is history.

Anyway, I hope my story doesn’t embarrass her, but there is a valuable object lesson. While waiting for the others to arrive at critique group one time, Nichole and I, chatted about her projects. I asked her why she didn’t pursue the LDS market and she looked thoughtful, and told me about her goals.

She is a very talented organizer and directed many of the activities of Author’s Incognito for years, but she gave it up to concentrate on her writing goals. Her writing talents are evident with publishing credits in the LDS market, including The Friend magazine. She even wrote on this blog for a while, but all those things were distracting. She wanted to get published in the national market.

Over the time I’ve known Nichole, rejections have piled up, but she kept rewriting and resubmitting. In 2012, she taught a class at Storymakers in which she presented:


The only way to truly find success as a writer is to finish what we start, believe in ourselves, our abilities, and our work, and to never, ever give up. In this industry, the path of persistence and perseverance is the only one that ends in publication. In the words of Master Yoda, "There is no try, only do, or do not.

Nichole taught that rejections will come. Someone asked her how many she’d had and wondered how she felt about that. She battled her emotions and answered the question. She continued to apply the principles she taught and landed the publishing contract she wanted, with others to follow.

Now the lesson here is obvious. Nichole believed in her dream and herself. She had obligations and family to take care of and she persisted. I’m looking forward to visiting with her and her family in one of the many beach houses she dreams of owning. Its part of the vision, and I’m sure she won’t rest until she achieves her goals.

Good luck with your writing—see you next week.