Joanne Troppello: Be Persistent and Don’t Give Up!

Joanne Troppello is an author of romantic suspense novels. She has published three books: Shadowed Remembrances, Mr. Shipley’s Governess and Bella Lucia. Currently, she is working on her new writing project, The Paradise Redeemed Series.

Joanne is married and loves spending time with her husband and family. She enjoys interacting with readers at The Mustard Seed Blog.

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Be Persistent and Don’t Give Up!

Last summer, my husband and I had a pesky little groundhog invading our vegetable garden. Actually, he was not such a little critter; he was pretty fat and I don’t think he needed to eat our tomatoes. Now, I love animals, don’t get me wrong, but I love my tomatoes and other veggies more. But, I did have to give our furry friend some credit because he had been persistent and didn’t seem to want to give up. We have two 8 x 8 raised garden beds and my husband did a great job of setting this garden up and putting wire fencing on the ground underneath the garden beds; he also put 3’ high rabbit fencing all around the garden.

We’ve had this garden for three years now and haven’t had much trouble with animals until last summer. The year before last, the groundhog was around, but he wasn’t so brazen.

During the last two weeks of summer, the groundhog had been coming around and nibbling on some tomatoes that had overgrown the fencing. Yes, we did have to do some reorganizing and plant the Juliet and Grape tomatoes further from the fencing. So, I do understand how our friend came along to eat some tomatoes growing through the fence. One memory of our furry friend sticks out in my mind. One day while I was finishing up on work, my husband called me into the kitchen as he looked out the window and we saw the groundhog literally sitting like a king on top of the wooden gate posts, leaning on the tomato cages eating as if he owned the place. Of course, I charged out on to our deck, with my husband chuckling in the kitchen, as I tried to scare the groundhog away. As he’d done before, he made his way around the other side of the garden and hid there in front of his hole under the fence of the property line, as if he thought I didn’t see him. Yes, I yelled at him again to get away. By the way, we live in a townhouse community and by then after these escapades with me coming out to scare our friendly critter away, the neighbors probably think I’m crazy. Maybe that’s why my husband wasn’t coming out; either that or I was providing entertainment for him.

Anyway, the groundhog dutifully scampered into his hole under the fence until the next day when he brazenly came back to our garden to feast. Thinking about this groundhog has made me realize that as authors, we need to be just as tenacious and consistent in our search to reach our goals in writing great stories and marketing our work. Even if we have editors getting back to us saying our work is not good enough, we need to take the good with the bad and keep going. Of course, if their criticisms are legitimate, we should heed them and make corrections. We need to be tenacious like the groundhog and never give up until we reach our goals and find the publishers we are looking for.

When it comes to marketing, we must keep working at it even when it seems like we are the only author, drowning in a sea of other authors and don’t feel like our efforts are making a difference. If we give up, then we won’t be making a difference in our success. However, every step we take in the right direction, even if it’s only baby steps in writing and marketing, is going to make a difference. Whenever we feel like giving up, let’s remember my furry friend, Mr. Groundhog, and keep hanging on. Success is just around the corner.