It's a metaphor, you see.

Oh man, been a while since my last update. Got on Twitter. Won NaNo. Working on a book. Have a hot story still percolating in my brain. And have Thinky Thoughts on writing. Behold.

Writing professionally is like learning to do chin-ups.

Well.  Okay.  Not learning to do chin-ups, because chin-ups are the easiest exercise there is (not like squats, argh), but growing strong enough to do one.  For women, at least.  Our shoulders are set slightly different than a man's, and all our strength is in our lower bodies.  It takes a lot of struggling to overcome whatever horrible thing estrogen does to our physiques to even do one chin-up.  I could do ten chin-ups before I got my period.  Afterwards?  One.  Then none.  I'm back up to three now, but it took six months of doing things like deadlifts and bench press and negative chin-ups before I was able to break that barrier.  Here's how it happens when you're trying your very best to do a chin-up before throwing your hands in the air and going off to work on the muscles you need to do one:

Day 1: Hang there.  Kick your feet a little.
Day 2: Hang there.  Kick your feet a little.
Day 3: Hang there.  Kick your feet a little.
...
Day 20: Hang there.  Squeeze your shoulders.  Bend your elbows.
Day 21: Hang there.  Squeeze your shoulders.  Bend your elbows.
Day 22: Hang there.  Squeeze your shoulders.  Bend your elbows.
...
Day 30: Hang there.  Squeeze your shoulders.  Get to ninety degrees. 
Day 31: Hang there.  Squeeze your shoulders.  Get to ninety degrees.
Day 32: Hang there.  Squeeze your shoulders.  Get to ninety degrees.
...
Day 47: Hang there.  Squeeze your shoulders.  Get to ninety degrees. 
...
Day 54: Hang there.  Squeeze your shoulders.  See bar in front of your face.
...
Day 57: Hang there.  Squeeze your shoulders.  Get to ninety degrees. 
...
Day 61: Hang there.  Squeeze your shoulders.  See bar in front of your face again.
Day 62: Chin-up! 

Of course, the weird thing is that doing a chin-up and failing to do a chin-up feel exactly the same.  You just actually end up doing one instead of failing out.  (I literally did not believe I did a chin-up for several weeks until I finally did two chin-ups, because I was like, "well, sure I got over the bar, but it didn't feel like I worked hard enough at it, so it must not have been a real chin-up!")

Finally getting a piece of writing accepted is the same way.  You write and you write and you wail and you moan and you get rejected and you cry and you hug your dog and you whine to your husband and you write and you write and you keep doing it until one day you churn out some story you don't even really care about and send it off and all of a sudden you're over the bar.  It's good enough.  Writing is a persistence sport, like long distance running.

Gotta keep at it.