Persistence And Resourcefulness Breed Success: An Explainer Featuring Author TJ Newman

Keep at it long enough and you’ll get it done.

That’s the key takeaway from one recent TMZ video featuring Tori Jan (T.J.) Newman, an ex-flight attendant turned author, and her personal battles in publishing “Falling,” a novel about a mid-air thriller.

About: An Illinois Wesleyan University theater major, Newman looked to turn her passion for singing and acting into a career.

After graduating, she moved to New York and found limited success; she then became a flight attendant.

During one flight, she observed a dark, cold, and quiet cabin filled with asleep passengers.

“I had this thought that their lives, my life, the lives of my crewmates, we were all in the hands of this pilot, but then the flip side: With that much power and responsibility, how vulnerable does that make a pilot,” she said in a statement to the Chicago Tribune.

During another flight, she asked a captain: “What would you do if your family was kidnapped and you were told if you didn’t crash the plane, they would be killed?”

The thought, alongside the pilot’s response, inspired her to then write “Falling.”

Tell Me More: In her debut novel, Newman tells the story of flight 416, a flight from Los Angeles to New York.

Prior to the plane’s departure, the captain’s family was kidnapped. The pilot was faced with a tough decision: crash the plane or let his family die.

“So then, the story follows the crew and passengers in the air trying their best, and the FBI and family on the ground in their attempts to do the impossible,” Newman told TMZ in a discussion on the thriller which Universal bought the rights to.

Despite the book attracting a lot of attention, the road prior to release was rough.

“I wrote over 30 drafts of this book,” she said. “I was rejected by 41 literary agents before I got my one and only yes for my 40-second submission.”

In getting across the finish line, so to speak, Newman read graduate-level texts on creative writing.

“I bought a book called ‘The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published,’ and I read it.”

Takeaway: Persistence and resourcefulness breed success.

“If there’s any message that is taken from this is that if I can do this, you can do this. Don’t accept no and ignore that voice inside you that says you shouldn’t keep going and just keep going.”

To watch the full video, click here.