Author Therese Walsh: The Courage to Succeed
Have you ever wondered what it takes to achieve great success? Where do successful people find the courage to fight past the fear and doubt we all inevitably encounter when pursuing our loftiest goals? Is there a secret to success? Who better to ask than someone who knows firsthand and is willing to share their wisdom?
Today Novelist Therese Walsh, author of The Last Will of Moira Leahy, is our first guest in an ongoing series of interviews on The Courage to Succeed.
Be sure to also check out our August Giveaway and enter to win a signed copy of Therese’s book. You can leave a comment on this post or on the giveaway page to be entered to win. The contest will run from August 3rd 2010 until August 15th. Please see the Giveaway page for complete rules and details.
The Courage to Succeed
Therese Walsh
Denice @ little light: Thank you for agreeing to be a part of the Courage to Succeed series at little light magazine. My first question is, do you consider yourself successful and is success something you’re comfortable with?
Therese Walsh: Thanks for having me!
I think of success as reaching the summit of whatever mountain it is that you’ve been struggling to climb. I struggled to climb the “publication mountain” for six years, so yes, I do consider myself successful on that count. However, there is always another mountain, and so I’m focused on those next hills now.
Denice: How do you define success for yourself?
Therese Walsh: Success is reaching the top of that mountain, taking a breath, looking around in wonder at all you’ve achieved. And then it’s making a new plan and deciding what to tackle next. I’m probably more comfortable being a climber than I am standing still for too long to look at the vista.
Denice: I can relate to that completely – standing still doesn’t feel right to me either.
When did you know you wanted to be a writer? Has your path to published author been easy or were there times you doubted yourself? Did you ever feel like quitting?
Therese Walsh: The writing bug bit me slowly. I took a class on magazine article writing in graduate school that inspired me and made me wonder. When I got a job at Prevention Magazine as a researcher, I wanted it to evolve into writing. It did, somewhat, but my writing career didn’t really take off until I left Prevention to become a freelance writer. My daughter was a baby then, and I wanted to stay with her fulltime; that’s when I began reading lots of picture books every day. That led to writing picture book manuscripts, and eventually to writing adult fiction.
I started writing adult fiction—the earliest draft of The Last Will of Moira Leahy—back in 2002. I wrote for a year, discovering the story, and ended up with a 130k manuscript. Too long by at least 30k words. I spent another year editing the story, and losing those 30k words. Then I sent it out for submissions and started gathering rejections, some of them positive. One agent told me that I should probably be writing women’s fiction. After mulling it over for many months, I decided to throw out the entire story and start over again with the women’s fiction market in mind. It took another year to finish a new draft, and another year to edit that draft.
Did I doubt? You bet. This story had already been rejected once. But I wanted the story of these twin girls to make it into a book.
Denice: How did you find the courage to work through those times and end up where you are now?
Therese Walsh: Little things kept me going. Some of the positive rejection letters were highlighted and sat beside my desk, including the words of the agent who’d encouraged me toward the path of women’s fiction. My critique partners were always encouraging. Mostly, I felt in my gut that the story needed to be told, and I had a strong desire to continue to grow as a writer—to be as good as the story concept.
Denice: How much of your success to you attribute to having the right mental attitude?
Therese Walsh: All of it—or at least 99% of it. The keys to my success were perseverance, listening to critique without defensiveness, and trusting my gut.
Denice: Why do you think you have been able to succeed where perhaps others have not?
Therese Walsh: I kept at it, reworking, reworking, reworking the prose and the concept until I believed in it wholly. And I continued to grow as a writer during that time, too—studying craft books and works of fiction that resonated with me.
Denice: When you look back, do you think you could have predicted the success you currently enjoy?
Therese Walsh: No, I wouldn’t have. Too superstitious! 
Denice: How much stock do you think aspiring writers should put in the commonly offered idea that it’s incredibly difficult to break into the writing market?
Therese Walsh: I think they should know that it IS incredibly difficult. And then I think they should say, “Yeah, so? I’m going to work my ass off, and I’m going to succeed. Just you watch.” And then do it. That’s what it takes.
Denice: Do you think that success feeds on itself and creates more success?
Therese Walsh: It can. But there are also a lot of things outside of the control of the writer. Is success selling a bazillion copies of your book? You can’t control that part of the business. You can control writing a great book. So I would say always make sure, when you’re choosing the next mountain to climb, that you’re facing the right direction and choosing the author’s mountain—not the publicist’s mountain or the marketing director’s mountain. If you write great books, eventually you’ll be well known for those books.
Denice: That’s a great answer – I think ‘facing the right direction’ is something a lot of us forget to do once we’re caught up in the energy other people bring to the table.
Do you think that success is a skill that can be learned?
Therese Walsh: I guess when you break it down into the keys to success, yes. You can learn to push yourself. You can learn to open yourself up to criticism. You can learn to rebuff advice you know in your gut is incorrect. You can be brave enough to lean into a hard edit to improve a story—even if that hard edit takes another two years of your life, as mine did.
Denice: What advice would you offer to someone who is struggling on the path to success and feels like giving up?
Therese Walsh: Don’t give up. The road to publication is littered with people who didn’t pack Gatorade. Know going in that it’s going to be a struggle. You’re going to have to revise your manuscript countless times in order to get it as close to perfect as possible. You’re going to be exhausted. Gatorade in this industry is a support network; it’s what you’ll need to lean on when your own internal drive wants to blink and fail—and it may once or twice. Just keep going, and your drive will return.
Denice: Is there anything you feel is a prerequisite for success?
Therese Walsh: A stubborn determination to succeed. And a true love for your story concept. If you don’t believe in your story down to your bones, you may be in trouble.
Denice: In what way has success changed your life?
Therese Walsh: Becoming published has increased my visibility and connected me directly to readers. Those readers are my lifeline now. They tell me what they loved about my work and what they didn’t love. Their words help me to grow as a writer, while validating many of the steps I’ve already taken.
Denice: Do you have any new projects or news you’d like to share with us?
Therese Walsh: The Last Will of Moira Leahy comes out in trade paperback today, August 3rd, and was recently named a Target Breakout Book. You should be able to find it in Target beginning in mid-August and running through mid-October. We’re all very excited about that.
I’m running a 47-author book giveaway on my Facebook Author page to celebrate the release of the paperback. It’s a “My Sister and Me” contest, so each of 47 winners will receive *two* copies of a book—one for themselves and one to share with a sister or friend. To enter, you have to “like” my author page, and then leave a comment per the contest rules.
Other than that, I am working on my second novel now and love the characters to pieces.
Denice: Therese, thank you so much for your thoughtful and inspiring answers on The Courage to Succeed. Congratulations on today’s exciting release of The Last Will of Moira Leahy in trade paperback and good luck with your second novel!
Therese Walsh: Thank you for having me!
Don’t forget to enter our August Giveaway to win a signed copy of Therese’s book!
Please join us next month when iPhone App creator and eBook author Carla White joins us to share her thoughts on The Courage to Succeed.
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“The road to publication is littered with people who didn’t pack Gatorade.”
HAHA that’s a neat way of putting it.
I’m a big fan of Therese’s, so thanks to both of you for doing this interview! Even after following her online presence for a while now, I still feel like I’m learning new things (like Gatorade! or being superstitious). And that’s what her books are like too: layers being revealed one at a time, each one just as lovely, if not more so, than the last.
I loved that line as well and I think it’s very accurate.
I’m glad you enjoyed the interview!
Teri, Congratulations. You’ve put in your time and more, you’ve perfected your craft, and most of all you’ve persevered. Have a sip of Gatorade, catch your breath, and look for the next mountain. Proud of you.
Loved this interview! Can’t wait to read the next one.
I loved Therese’s book and really enjoyed this interview. It’s great to get the perspective of someone who has been there. Thanks for this.
I agree, I loved the book and really enjoyed the interview. I’ll be back to read the next one as well.
awesome.. loved the interview!
Thanks for the great comments, everyone; and thanks again for the fun Q&A, Denice!
Therese, I really enjoyed interviewing you. You are the first person I have ever interviewed and I think it turned out great – thanks in large part to you! Thanks again for your participation!
Thanks for the great interview. Hope to win the book!
This was great! I love Therese’s attitude and outlook.
I can’t believe you threw out the entire book and started over. What a strong commitment to finding the right way to tell the story you wanted to tell. I’m not sure everyone would have the guts to do that. In fact, I’m betting that right there is the difference between writers who succeed and those who don’t.
Great interview, great subject.