Just like any adventure, a book isn’t generally a short thing. Just like the story itself, the writer will experience the twists, turns, ups and downs of assembling the eighty-odd-thousand words that form the plot.

The odd university undergraduate will attest to the fact that even a two-thousand word essay can prove to be a long, arduous task. Without this ingredient, persistence, along with the possible threat of failure that usually comes with a university degree, it will remain incomplete if it is even started.

Without entering the complexities of the psychology of failure and success, persistence, is the difference between those that make it and, those that don’t.

It is into this category that the overcoming of writers’ block falls – persistence in the cold face of that little devil is what sees a book through to its end.

There are as many strategies to write a book as there are writers; though I don’t know them all, I could guess they are all of a similar ilk. A writer should treat his work like a job – this does not mean they should think their writing as arduous, sluggish or awful as one may consider their day-job. The difference here is that at a day-job, one usually has a boss who, cracking his or her whip, makes sure you do your work and complete your tasks.

You, however, as a writer, are your own boss. You need to motivate yourself, crack your own whip, be ready for work and ready to do a good job, whether you want to or not. As a writer, you must want to get your work completed; it’s your product, that thing you spend a whole lot of time making.

This is not intended to make writing seem a rough, laborious, unromantic job. It is intended to give the very real perception that writing is a craft that requires hard work. It is not, necessarily, glamorous, but it does have rewards far greater than one would experience at their day-job. Naturally, this adds to the romance often associated with the writer.

Persistence, as far as writing a novel is concerned, is wrapped in the facets of the game of life. As a writer, you are not separated from the standard demands life lays on one. JRR Tolkien endured a war and continued his university professorial career, ignoring none of his day-to-day responsibilities, throughout the writing of The Lord of the Rings. He most certainly did not sever his connections to the real world to complete his piece. He persisted, even during The Blitz (which none of us may ever have to live through) to get the task of his book done.

Persistence, could be defined as overcoming the obstacles in one’s way to complete one’s assigned task, no matter how large or ominous those obstacles are. In reality, this is far more adventurous than this basic definition eludes. To persist, then, you just keep writing, no matter what. You keep punching out your words, keeping the story flowing, no matter what barriers life throws in your way.

Your completed book is the result of having persisted. Persisting even more at the other end of the writing process, that being getting your book published and into bookstores, is the next step. This is where many a writer throws in the towel – factually, this can be tough and not without disappointment.

But, it need not be. The obstacle may seem bigger, but this is a matter only of perspective.

It is one’s perspective on this that will make all the difference. Here’s an example: in the ‘30s, the days of pulp fiction, there was a writer who wrote three days a week, three hours each day and who wrote 100,000 words a month. Neither his peers or his publishers could believe it; but, he could. Hence, he was able to write a novel a month. Better still was his skill – he wrote one draft requiring only a minimal edit before printing. His books, too, were bestsellers.

In his perspective, there was no way he couldn’t achieve what he did, there was no way his books wouldn’t get published, there was no way his books wouldn’t sell.

Obviously, his perspective on his own ability and what he thought was ‘a lot’ had a great deal to do with his productivity. While everyone else was astounded by his high productivity, his own perspective on his own production was nonplus – to him, it was no big deal.

But, he persisted. He got the job done, got his books published and sold because he had to. It was, after all, during the Great Depression and he had to eat.

You can persist enough to get your book published – keep sending out those manuscripts to everyone and anyone that will take it. Listen to the feedback, make the corrections, send it out again. Persist.

There are a lot of people that will tell you otherwise, that it’s hard.

Don’t listen – of course it’s tough, but it’s not impossible.

However trite and well-used this old phrase may be, it’s 100% true: Nothing is impossible, just keep at it.

Anthony Santoro is the author of the Mike Felice series of detective novels and is principal contributor to the Writers' Resource Centre. Read more about Anthony Santoro on the Writers' World About Us page