Goodreads asked Jaclyn Gilbert:

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Jaclyn Gilbert NEVER GIVE UP! When a rejection notes comes in from a journal, agent, or editor, get back on the saddle and keep writing. Cheesy as it might sound, I truly think writing is about that mindset more than anything else. As someone who has been a dedicated distance runner since I was thirteen, I've had to learn to not let "failure" stop me. Distance running & marathon training training especially, like writing, is grueling work. Some days flow, mind and body working as one, but for most others, mind and body feel separate, and the last thing a writer wants to do is sit down with the chaos of her psyche and try to order it into a story that will take days into months and years to revise toward a larger unity. Writing a first draft is as joyful and freeing as any childhood endeavor, but more than that it is hard work. I think it's really about dedicating yourself to sitting down and doing it and setting lots of goals! I finished the first draft of my novel by committing to writing 20 pgs a day on a legal pad, and then I worked toward other tangible deadlines...(deadlines for fellowships/conferences, deadlines for submitting the finished manuscript to agents...deadlines for working with agent to submit the manuscript to editors)....each goal (big/small) allowed me the vision to focus on the craft in a daily way over the course of several years...enough for the work to find a home & community of readers!

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