Being published does not mean you're a good writer. It means you are marketable. If you're in it for the money, then by all means push to publish. And while you're at it, you can weave some threadbare tale of vampires, wizards, and tired love triangles. Surely, you can make a quick buck off of it, as many have already done.
But, if you wish to be a good writer, if you wish to inspire, to change lives by your words, to be a true author, then slow down. Hone your skill--practice daily, take classes, recieve advice and feedback. Enjoy the bitersweet process of creating and destroying, editing and reviewing, spinning words into a beautiful tapestry of story and language. If your are destined to be published, then the time will come.
Good writing makes people think, it makes them uncomfortable. It makes people put themselves in place of the characters and wonder, "What would I do?" It makes people change--for the better or worse is up to you, for words have power no matter the source. The gem of your work might not be acknowledged. Indeed, it might not even be discovered until after you're gone, or maybe not at all. Your name might not ever be on the New York Time's Best Seller list, or on an English teacher's white board forty years from now. Your book might not even be available in most bookstores. A fruitless endeavor, then? Maybe so, but let me tell you this--it was one little black book crammed in the shelves of the teen section at the back corner of a North Carolina library that changed my life forever. The author might not ever know, though I hope to tell her some day. Even so, changing even one life has made her an angel, and now I aspire to change lives as well as foster others' desire to change lives, in an unending and beautiful cycle. And that is what it is to be an author.
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