There’s an image floating around the internet with a quote from Peter Dinklage about luck. I’m not sure he actually said it. I kind of don’t care, because someone said it.

Although I hate that word—“lucky.” It cheapens a lot of hard work. Living in Brooklyn in an apartment without any heat and paying for dinner at the bodega with dimes—I don’t think I felt myself lucky back then. Doing plays for 50 bucks and trying to be true to myself as an artist and turning down commercials where they wanted a leprechaun. Saying I was lucky negates the hard work I put in and spits on that guy who’s freezing his ass off back in Brooklyn. So I won’t say I’m lucky. I’m fortunate enough to find or attract very talented people. For some reason I found them, and they found me.

Here’s the thing… fortunate=lucky. I mean, seriously, if you look up synonyms, they’re right there in black and white.

Now, that isn’t to say I disagree with the meat of the quote. He’s right, chalking everything up to luck does ignore all the hard work that someone puts in before they become successful–and while they are successful. (If you think hard work stops once you…make the sale or hit a list or make your first $X –think again.) But ignoring the luck component entirely is very dismissive of those who have worked just as hard and are just as talented, but haven’t been as “fortunate.”

I have a friend who is a playwright and actor out in Hollywood. He runs an entire theater company that has been written up in several papers out there. They’re known for putting on quality productions (and I think they’ve even won some awards).

…They’re not famous. I’d argue that they’re not even “known.” The company is, the actors? The writers? Not so much. They’re putting in the work. Hell, I’m pretty sure there have been times they’ve put in their own money to make sure stuff happened when it was supposed to, but they haven’t “made it” yet.

Why?

Because for all the great reviews and solid press, for all the happy customers…they haven’t found the right people yet.

It’s the same with books. There’s a saying about how the right person has to find the right book at the right time and talk about it to the right other people…and that’s how books hit. That’s the luck part. Can it be rigged? I’m sure it can. I’m also sure most authors don’t know how to do the rigging–and what we do know about, we find shady. There are probably less questionable methods, but my guess is those require buckets of money that most authors don’t have. Big publishers do…and they are careful about how they use it, devoting it to the books most likely to succeed.

The rest of us put in the work. We pound the pavement. We bleed on the page and then, during edits, we kill our darlings and bleed again. And we wait…for the stars to align and fortune to smile upon us.

But in the meantime, we put in the work–over and over again.