Hope for the Future

I was reading the 3rd book in the Lords of the Underworld series (love, love that series), and I found it interesting that hope was considered a demon. At first blush you may wonder how that could be. Hope isn't evil. Hope isn't destructive. Hope isn't bad. No, hope is good and encouraging.


But if you really think about it, hope can be considered all of those things: good and bad, encouraging and destructive.

We are hopeful when we write our first draft. We are hopeful when we ask our critique members to review our work. We are hopeful when we submit our query to agents/editors/contests. We are hopeful when we pass the first/second/third round of a contest, or when an agent or editor asks to see more of our manuscript.

We hope for rave reviews. We hope for positive feedback. When hope to make the finals in that contest. We hope to land a contract. We hope that readers will appreciate our work.

Sometimes, we get what we hope for. Those are good times. We feel good, we feel encouraged. We feel vindicated and we're buoyed by hope, with the energy to keep plugging at our craft.

Sometimes, we don't get what we hope for. Sometimes the reviews aren't what we'd hoped for, or we don't make the cut in a contest, or those agents/editors will take a pass. Those are the bad times. Those are the times when hope is crushed; when we're discouraged. We were hopeful, confident, and it seems as though hope itself set us up for the fall. And then there are times when we lose hope altogether.

But never, ever lose hope. Without hope, you may never write that award-winning novel, or contact an agent/editor who turns out to be the perfect match for you and your work.Without hope, you may have no reason to wake up in the morning and see how your novel has risen in the charts.

Writing isn't easy. But do what you love, learn what you can, work hard, persevere, and hope for the future.