What important thing should you keep doing?

Six months ago, I returned from four nights in a cabin up in the hills. Saved on my computer was a completed manuscript for my latest book.

The following week, I got to work building out a list of my dream literary agents and started sending emails. For months, I heard nothing, and then the occasional templated rejection letter came back with my name pasted into the first sentence. It was humbling. Embarrassing. Many nights, as I was trying to sleep, I wondered if the writing simply wasn't good enough.

During this time, I found myself at a writer's festival where the author Richard Flanagan was speaking. He is the winner of the prestigious Booker literary prize, and he is astounding. If you've seen the new series 'The Narrow Road to the Deep North' with superstar Jacob Elordi, that's Flanagan's work. He is a man with an arresting intensity who rarely minces words.

After his speech, I lined up patiently for a moment with him, a copy of his book 'Question 7' in hand. When it was my turn, he took the book from me, a pen at the ready. While he signed the inside cover, I thanked him for his writing and told him I was a writer myself. I quickly shared the overview of my book – that it starts on September 11, 2001, when, as a boy, I left for war, and finishes seven years later in East Africa, when I was trying to be a man of peace.

He looked up at me from his desk, right into my eyes, and for a moment, the hundreds of other people at that event seemed to fade into the shadows. He didn't speak for an age, then simply said, “That book is very important. You must keep going.”

So, I did. I kept sending more emails. I saw every ‘no’ as one step closer to a ‘yes’. And today, I signed a book deal with Hardie Grant, a brilliant publisher. God, it feels good. This 'important' book of mine will be out in September this year.

I kept going.

If you’re working on something important right now, perhaps this brief note is timely.

You must keep going too.