5 tips for aspiring authors for staying persistent

I’m not the first person with a chronic illness to have endured their fair share of warrior analogies. I am ‘fighting a battle at cellular level’, ‘winning the war’, or not. Being a writer and having a fight on your hands have something in common: the journey is laborious, sometimes painful, and above all, victory isn’t promised.

When I was asked how I keep going (beyond dogged determination and a Type A personality that won’t quit), I realised the advice I might give to someone newly diagnosed applies to aspiring authors too.

1. Follow your dreams now, not later

Time is finite, energy too. I wrote my debut A Healthy Appetite with a feverish determination over the course of around eight months. Thankfully, not everyone has the same frantic worry I did, that I wouldn’t be around to see my story to the finish line. Cancer reminds you perpetually that ‘time is of the essence’ and as we all know, publishing moves at a languorous pace. Showing up to the laptop when I had the energy, I told myself I was one step closer to realising my dream. It’s an effective spur that: write now or never

2. Find your cheerleaders

I’m a sucker for positive reinforcement. Daily, I dish it out to students in the classroom, but as adults we receive way less of it. Writing a novel can be an isolating, thankless ordeal; community takes the edge off. If you can, connect with like-minded writers in your genre who might be up for a critique partner swap. I loved sharing weekly snippets from my work in progress with a writer pal and found it encouraged a delicious momentum. If I didn’t have anything new for them each week, I’d miss out on the praise and insight that helped me to keep going.

3. Rebound from rejection fast

Spoiler alert: there’s no way around rejection. I signed with my agent on book three and before that, racked up more rejections than I’d care to count. On my laptop are several spreadsheets of them, a flood of reds for ‘manuscript rejected’ and a handful of full requests which eventually ran red too. I entered lots of competitions and made it nowhere, but I didn’t give up. For every no I tried again. Eventually, I was longlisted for two awards and had several offers of representation, proving that persistence really does pay off.

4. Get out there

I say this tentatively. We can’t attend every weekend-long industry extravaganza, but if opportunity calls and you can, do. Writing courses are a brilliant way to make connections and improve your craft. There are a range available for writers in the UK and beyond, most of them offering industry insight and a means of hearing from editors, agents and authors. In person events are brilliant too. I first met my agent at the Jericho Writer’s London Festival of Writing. In the room buzzing with all the other agents and nervous authors, she told me she wanted to read the rest of my novel. I hadn’t even finished a first draft. I remember us parting that day – giddy from self-belief – with a promise to get back in touch. And we did, months later. The rest is history.

5. Stay present, not two steps ahead

There’s a chance you already know too much. You’ve stalked The Bookseller’s deals announcements and have calculated the odds of a book selling in the current climate. If you can, while you’re drafting, avoid learning too much about the reality of publishing before your novel is written and ready to be submitted to agents. Pouring over the sometimes-disenchanting statistics is demotivating and leads to a reluctance to engage with your work. Fall in love with your story first, then ask someone else to do so later.

So how do we keep going, even now? 

In a nutshell, I’m sorry to say that there isn’t a straight line from wanting to getting, but a series of side quests and setbacks. The good news? You don’t have to do it alone. Find your community and invest in it now – the pay off later is incredible.

Katie Huttlestone is the author of the forthcoming novel A Healthy Appetite which will be released by Dead Ink Press in August 2026. Delightfully dark and addictive, A Healthy Appetite is a ravenous tale of morality vs mortality, that asks how much of yourself would you give up to become healthy?