Writing and Perseverance

I was at the Pikes Peak Writers Conference listening to keynote speaker, Jodi Thomas, and I actually got a little weepy - and I'm so not a crier. Jodi is a NYT best-selling author many times over and is the author of books such as Tall, Dark, and Texan. She was a hilarious speaker who nailed the differences between people who are writers and people who aren't. She was also such an inspiration to aspiring authors everywhere. She told a story of starting out in the business and what led her to persevere, which I'll sum up briefly here.

Jodi decided she wanted to write for a living and proceeded to write non-stop in her free time. Sometime later, she attended a writing conference where there was a competition involving 15 different contest categories. She wrote something and entered ALL 15 categories! She went to the conference with high expectations, certain they would just keep her up on stage as she'd win so many of the awards. Not only did she win ZERO awards, but one of the categories only had 7 total entries and they gave out 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place and then 3 honorable mentions. Yep, she was the 7th place out of 7. Feeling horrible about herself and her writing, she left the conference and drove to a cemetery, saying it was the only place she knew she'd be doing better than everyone else.

She plunked herself down on a cement square and when she stood up awhile later, she noticed she was sitting on the word THROUGH that had been etched in the stone. Thinking that was an odd word to have alone on a stone, she brushed the leaves off the rest of the square to find there was one word on each side. It read:
"Triumph Comes Through Perseverance." She decided in that moment that she was a writer no matter what, and left that cemetery knowing for certain that she wouldn't turn back.

Don't get me wrong - talent is great. I think you need a certain amount of talent to succeed in whatever your chosen path is, but beyond that, you need perseverance. Plenty of talented writers will never be published. It takes perseverance and doing that 20th revision, if necessary, to get it right. Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise! Now excuse me, while I get back to my 20th revision...:)

Does anyone else have writerly inspiration that has helped them through a rough time?