Love What You Write

Writing can be an enjoyable experience or it can be a nightmare. It’s your choice. It doesn’t have to be a chore. The trick is to find a story you want to tell. Don’t worry about what’s selling, although that would be nice to be able to sell our stories, but if the story you want to write isn’t the same as what the latest best seller is about, that’s good. You aren’t a copycat after all. If you enjoy what you write, there’s a good chance someone else will enjoy reading it.

I know what you are thinking, publishers want things that sell. I think by choosing things similar to what’s trending, they are limiting their catalogs. Let’s face it, after a while the market gets clogged with books with the same general plot: supernatural being of author’s choice falls in love with a human. Angst follows. Then things get resolved in some way or another. They end up happy or broken. Vampire, werewolves, fairy, whatever, it’s the same story.

I have a work in progress that’s an adventure. I wrote the rough draft during NaNoWriMo. The following November I wrote a sequel. Then I realized the sequel was the same story. So I have combined the two stories into one and I think I have a stronger story as a result. Of course, that means I have a lot of rewriting and editing to do. That’s all the part of writing.

I love the characters and that’s important. If you don’t like your story, or its characters, you should shelve the story and find something else. If you don’t get enjoyment from what you are writing, readers won’t enjoy reading it. The one follows the other.
When you like what you are writing, the words will come easily. The rough draft will manifest and you will be on to the next stage of the writing process, revision. If you don’t like what you are writing, you will find excuses not to write. It’s just that simple.

If the words aren’t coming, put the piece away and try writing something else. A lot of what we call writer’s block is just that we don’t like what we are writing. Maybe we are just bored with it. Either way, the writing becomes less a joy and more of a slog.
I’m assuming, of course, that you don’t have someone breathing down your neck for the story. If you do, read what you have and try to think of where your creative spark died. If you can find that point, scrap whatever came after and see if you can rekindle the spark and go in another direction.

It’s better to scrap your work than to produce something you are not really happy with. I’m saying you should delete or throw away the parts that didn’t work, go ahead and keep them. Put them in a new file. You may find yourself returning to them later and incorporating them in the work in a new way. That often happens as well. Good luck and good writing.

About pebblepup

I am not one who is comfortable talking about myself but here goes. I enjoy writing, family history, and reading. I decided to do this blog because I wanted to try something new. I decided to make it a weekly blog because I wasn't sure that I could keep up with a daily one, and monthly seemed like I was writing a magazine. I think I did ok with my choices. You'll notice that there are not a lot of graphics on my site. That's because there are graphics plastered everywhere on the Internet and those sites sometimes take forever to load. This blog is a place where you can kick back, relax and be ready to be amused. At least I hope I willbamuse you. This blog is on a variety of subjects from my ficitional cat agency, the FFL, which is monthly, to instructional blogs to editorials, which are my opinions only. I admit that I don't know everything and could be wrong -- I frequently am. Now, stop reading about me and read what I have to say!