Fun & Love or Persistence?

I've been hearing/reading the same comments over and over again lately: If you write, you should love it. If you don't love it, you shouldn't write. When it's not fun anymore, quit.

These sentiments have made me question my own fit with writing. It's no secret this last year has been trying for me as a writer. I've been revising one manuscript while another has been going out to NY houses. I've been waiting. I've been getting rejections. It's been rough. And there have been many times over the last year that I haven't loved writing. There have been many times when it hasn't been fun. But never did I seriously consider quiting.

Writing, like marraige and jobs and raising kids, has peaks and valleys. There will be days you don't love writing. There will be days when 'fun' is the last word you'd use to describe getting your story down on paper. The reality is, that's the nature of this business. Yes, we have to accept it, but we don't have to like it.

If I stopped doing something every time I fell out of love with it, if I quit something simply because it wasn't fun anymore I wouldn't have graduated from college, I wouldn't have stayed married for 16 years, I would have sold my children at age two, I would never have held job longer than six months and I'd have dumped some of my more irritating friends years ago.

But I didn't and my life is happier, richer, more satisfying and more successful for it.

Unpublished or published, writers suffer through revision, rejection, writer's block, self-doubt, financial hardships, dry spells, despair. There are a lot of "not fun" parts to this whole business. There are also a lot of "highs" available to those willing to work for them.

The only way to succeed at anything in life is persistence. Acknowledge the rough spots and ride them out, work through them or just put your head down and walk straight into the storm. But don't feel like you weren't meant to write because you're not on a constant writer's high. And don't quit based on someone else's estimated value of your destiny based on your own negative responses to the rough spots.

Bottom line: believe in yourself, in your writing, and get it done, however you get it done.

Do you believe in fun & love or persistence? How do you get through the valleys on your writing path? At what point do you draw the line and move on?