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3 Things I Learned From Not Wanting to Write Anymore (and Sticking with It)

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If you saw my post the other day, you read the culmination of a couple weeks of frustration and not wanting to write. I finally decided to admit what was going through my head, and it actually helped. A lot. Here are three things I learned that helped get me back to being excited to write again.

Magic

Revision is Important, but so is Creating Something New

The first draft of the first novel I’ve written in over 8 years was . . . rough. Okay, as I have heard other bloggers call it, it was brain vomit on the page. I spent three times longer revising this piece of work than I spent writing it. Yeah. Three times. Some of the revisions were fun, especially the early ones where things were still being fleshed out and there was a lot of additions and even more changes. The later revisions were less than fun, but they needed to be done.

During the months of revising Knight of Valor, I started work on a second novel. Need a better title than Devil’s Due, but that’s what I’m calling it now. I finished the first draft of this novel while I was still tinkering with revisions on Knight of Valor.

Now I have two novels that needs to be revised. So I didn’t start work on a third (even though I have several ideas percolating) because I was spending all my writing time revising. As important as revising is, it doesn’t keep me nearly as engaged or as happy as writing something new.

DH had recommended I write something for myself, something I would never try to publish, so I could enjoy it and not worry about revisions. He recommended I write fan fiction so it wouldn’t even be a temptation. I heard his words but didn’t listen (sorry DH!).

When Mariah Avix over at 600 Second Saga reminded me that creating was important, too, it really hit home.  Guess DH had to soften my thick skull up first.

 

Talk to Someone (and Listen!)

It really helped to hear other people remind me how important creating was. How there is more to the process than the end product. Sometimes the process itself is important.

And I love creating new characters, new conflicts, and finding a way to have them conquer it and live happily ever after. Yeah, romance writer here. You can tell.

I had lost perspective of that. And I hadn’t spent much time fleshing out new characters in months.

And, er, well, listen when people tell you something, even if you don’t want to hear it. (Sorry, DH!)

 

Keep Reading

This, honestly, helped. Way more than I thought it would. I picked new-to-me-authors, and while I really disliked some of what I read, I really liked others. Or parts of others. The reading in and of itself helped a little. Hearing a new voice has it pros, but the way my brain works when I read is that I no longer “see” the words on the page. So I don’t learn much on the craft piece just by reading. What I do learn more about is storytelling, but only when I ask why. Why did I like or dislike a heroine? Why was I bored and skimming through sections? How did an author craft a believable romance versus one that made me roll my eyes? What did I like about a hero that made him memorable? What parts of the steamy scenes drew me in? Bored me? Made me skim them to get them over with?

I am going to try to keep up with reading more, even if it means writing less. We’ll see if I still feel this way in a couple of weeks, but I am hoping it helps with the quality of my writing (and revising).

Besides, I love a good book.

Book Review: The Goblin King by Shona Husk

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Rating: 2.5/5 Stars

When I first picked this up, I was expecting a more fantasy setting. It’s set partially in our world and partially in the Shadowlands, but the Shadowlands are not fleshed out very well. Sort of a shadowy place filled with Goblins, and while it says all Goblins were once human, it is not entirely clear to me how they get to the Shadowlands or how they go about hoarding gold while there.

Disappointed that this wasn’t more fantasy, but overall, an okay read. Just don’t think too deeply.

The story has an interesting premise. A king and his most loyal men are cursed by a druid who believes his king sold out their people to the Romans. The Goblin King must break the curse before he loses his soul and becomes a true Goblin.

Overall, think Beauty and the Beast, but the Beast is a Goblin King who has always been a good man rather than having to be taught that by being a Beast.

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Pros

  1. I enjoyed the fact that cursing someone has ramifications for the person casting the curse. The druid is dragged to the Shadowlands with the Goblin King when he casts the curse, his own soul tied up in it.
  2. The steamy scenes are decent. I list this in the pros as doing this wrong will make me put a book down fast. They weren’t the kind I’ll go back and reread, but they were decent.
  3. While there is emotional manipulation and suggestion of rape, there is no physical abuse or actual rape. Thank god. This is a romance novel, and frankly, if either of those appears in a romance novel, it is all but impossible to keep me reading.
  4. Not the biggest fan of the heroine, but she does grow a spine by the end.
  5. There is a Happily Ever After Ending

 

Cons

  1. The backstory is a bit incoherent and could have helped make the story a lot richer.
    • Was not entirely clear as to why the druid would give the Roman soldiers that he despised control over the curse so that they could force the Goblin King to kill his own men.
    • Was never sure why the druid thought the king had betrayed his people.
    • Never understood why the druid didn’t feel remorse and try to atone. They know very shortly after the curse that the Goblin King did not betray his people. As the druid is the Goblin King’s antagonist, better understanding him would help a lot
  2. The story goes on too long. Not because there isn’t a good plot, but because everything in the plot is so easily dealt with.
    • The evil fiancée – goes away because of a bad dream and a bump on the head? Really? Most of this happens offstage.
    • The blackmail paperwork – the Goblin King simply takes it from the evil fiancée’s office. And it all happens offstage. (I am still not certain why she thought she was implicated in fraud simply for setting up the company used to commit fraud. Especially as her job was to help lots of people set up companies for her law office. You’d think, growing up with a powerful and influential lawyer as a father, she’d have contacted a really good lawyer as she can clearly afford it and gotten help. You know, rather than agreeing to marry a cheating, manipulative snake.)
  3. Her involvement in the blackmail – once ex-fiancée’s scheme comes to light, the heroine is free and clear ASAP. No suspicions, no ramifications. Ummm, and so she stayed for 5 years with an abusive man why?!?
  4. The evil druid – there is really no fight. I had expected something epic.
  5. The Wild Ride – I expected something to come of it. Perhaps with the ex-fiancée, perhaps with the curse. It is a non-event.

 

While I love the fact none of the plot points dragged on, making things a little tougher on the characters would have allowed a resolution to the story shortly after the horrible fiancée and the druid were dealt with. Once these two were both taken care of, I was surprised I still had 1/4 or so of the book to go. All the main points of conflict, except the curse, had been resolved.

This remaining 1/4 is a lot of characters being sad while they no longer have any avenues to find a cure. Would have much rather let the main plot take longer (and maybe a bit more to the steamy scenes) with a resolution shortly after what I had expected to be a climactic final battle.

I mean, after Gaston falls to his death, you’re not looking at another 20 minutes of Belle and Beast bemoaning how there is no cure for him while they hang around and do nothing other than wait for him die.

 

Diamond Part 5: Bourbon in the Dark

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 DH’s next installment of the Drake Diamond Saga. I like Betty. Unusual for me as vampires aren’t usually my thing. 

Part1, Part2, Part 3, Part 4 are available if you want to read them for the first time or get a refresher.    

Ace

Betty has to rush off to meet Papa Thorne, and she swears to me she’ll be back as soon as she can.

“I’m already a dead man in a cemetery,” I assure her, smirking.  “What’s the worst that could happen?”

She smiles apologetically at me, and I catch another glimpse of her fangs.  Then she turns and runs off with a superhuman speed that surprises me.  Although it really shouldn’t.  It occurs to me that I’ve spent the evening with a blood-drinking creature who preys upon the living.  I’m not afraid of her, myself.  I’ve got no blood to drink.  But how would I feel if Betty preyed upon someone like Maxine to meet her dietary needs?

Or Lana?

In all the stories I’d read about vampires, they were monsters.  The bad guys.  The stories were filled with fear, tragedy, and death until the happy ending where the good guys finally destroyed them.  Usually involving a wooden stake and a mallet.  Dracula.  Nosferatu.  Varney.

Maybe they’re not so bad once you get to know ’em.

Of course, I’ve only known Betty for one night.  She’s likable enough.  Not sure I trust her though.

I’m not the trusting sort to begin with.  The trusting sort doesn’t do well in my line of work, for one thing.  But that’s not the only reason.

I’d worked on a fair number of kidnapping cases, both as a cop and as a private eye.  When making ransom demands, kidnappers almost always say “don’t go to the police or your loved one gets it”.  They do that ’cause police have a lot of experience and proven techniques at their disposal for effectively dealing with kidnappers.  If you go the police for help, the kidnappers are likely going to wind up behind bars instead of getting paid.  So they use fear to keep you from doing the smart thing and going to the professionals who know how to effectively unravel their plans.

Same thing with brainwashing cults.  They tell their recruits…their victims, that is…that psychologists are evil.  To be avoided at all costs.  That’s because psychiatrists and psychologists are really good at recognizing brainwashing techniques, and the cults don’t want that.

So earlier when Betty told me not to think too much about the magic she used on me, or it would stop holding me together, I couldn’t help but see the same pattern.  I got to wondering if besides raising me from the dead she cast another spell or two on me.

And then there’s the matter of giving me a place to stay.  In her family’s mausoleum.  In a cemetery surrounded by a brick wall with decorative wrought-iron spikes and heavy wrought-iron gates.  She says she didn’t know I’d be vulnerable to iron.  But she knew ghosts were.  And I’m not exactly a ghost, but whatever I am, Betty’s the one who cast the spell.  I was a desperate experiment, she says.  Maybe she was telling the truth.  Maybe.

I may not trust Betty.  Not fully.  But for now she’s all I’ve got.  For now.

Now that she’s run off, I might as well head inside the mausoleum.  She’d said she spent a lot of time fixing up the inside.  Might as well have a look.

Right inside the entrance there are some steps down.  Not very many.  Coming into the crypt is like stepping down off of a porch.  First thing I see is a row of plaques on the wall.  A bunch of names I don’t recognize, and Salvatore “Sonny” Malone.  His plaque is recessed into the marble wall about an inch.  The other plaques are flush with the wall.  Odd.

I press my hand against his plaque.  There a soft “clunk” sound, like a weight somewhere shifting position, and the plaque springs out, flush with the wall like all the others.  And the entrance quietly slides closed behind me.

And now there’s not even moonlight.  The darkness is absolute, pitch black.

And I can see just fine in it.

Guess from now on the only thing I’ll need a lighter for is my cigarettes.

It’s different, seeing without light.  And yet it’s still “seeing”.  I can see all the colors and textures and patterns I can see in light.  But I see them in the dark, while also seeing that it is, in fact, perfectly pitch-black dark.

Is that hard to picture?  Once I figure out how to describe color to someone who was born blind, I’ll have the words.

Past the row of plaques are walls with long recessed shelves.  And on each shelf lays someone wrapped in a shroud.  Well…this is a crypt.

“Pardon me.  Don’t get up.  Name’s Drake Diamond.  Betty said I could stay here.  Hope you don’t mind.  It’s just for a few days.”

Nothing.  Either Betty was telling the truth about them Resting in Peace, or I’m being snubbed.  Hard to say which is more likely.

There are three layers of shelves, from about waist high all the way up to the ceiling.  It’s a narrow corridor, only slightly wider than a closet.  I don’t recognize the names carved on the shelves either.  Three body-length shelves later, about twenty feet, the corridor ends but there’s a stone spiral staircase down.

One rounded flight down, and I find myself in a cozy one-room apartment.  No kitchenette, and no bathroom, but that’s okay.  I don’t need them anymore.

There’s a desk with a blotter, and a wheeled leather swivel arm chair.  On the desk is a crystal decanter and a couple of matching glasses.  No filing cabinet.  Not sure I need one, but the desk doesn’t look right without it.  There’s a coat rack by the desk, too.  Across the room there’s a comfy looking sofa and some cushioned chairs.  The floor’s even covered by a decent rug.  In another corner there’s a wardrobe and a few other cabinets.

Of course, when you fix up a crypt, it’s still a crypt.  All four walls are more of those shelves, and there are a few dozen folks interred here, by my guess.  And it’s still pitch-black darkness.  Something tells me if I wasn’t undead, I’d find it awfully creepy in here.

“Evening, folks.  You may have heard me upstairs.  Drake Diamond.”  I give a slight nod to the crypt in general and touch the tip of my fedora.  “Betty assures me none of you will mind my staying here for a few days.  If she’s wrong, don’t hesitate to speak up.  I’m sure we can work out a reasonable arrangement.”

After what feels like a full minute none of them voice any objections.  Yeah, I remember what Betty said, but that’s no reason to be impolite.

After hanging up my coat and hat on the rack, I make my way over to the desk and take the crystal decanter and pull out the knob and give it a whiff.  Bourbon.

I pull over a glass and I’m about to pour, but stop myself before a single drop leaves the decanter.  Why the hesitation?  Because wasting good bourbon is a travesty, and the question just occurred to me:  Is bourbon going to be the same, like cigarettes?  Or a hollow sensation of its former pleasure, like eating?

Frowning, I recap the decanter and put it down, and put my hands in my pockets.  Empty.  My matches and smokes are in my coat.  Betty’s right.  I’ve got no wallet.  No keys.  No cash.  Couldn’t have gotten a room or a bed without bumming more off of her.  Macho pride, she called it.  Well, dead or not, a man needs his dignity.

“Anyone here mind if I smoke?”

They’re exactly as chatty as they were before.  I go over to my coat and fish out my smokes and matches.  Six cigarettes left.  I’ll have to buy more soon.  Maybe later I can find some loose change over in the sofa cushions.

Striking a match, the tiny flame makes the room suddenly oppressively dark.  I can barely see a thing.  I let the match fizzle out, and I can see again.

I take out another match and do the same thing.  Light it, and let it fizzle out.  Same thing happens.  And again with a third match.  Now I’ve got a working theory.

Seems as though when there’s any light at all, even from a single match, I see like I did when I was alive: by light.  It’s only when there’s utterly pitch black darkness I can see like the dead.

With a fourth match I light up and take a few puffs, shaking out the match and looking around for an ashtray.  None.  I’ll have to get one of those.  No way I’m even going to try to quit smoking now that I’m already dead.

I crush the match out on the stone floor of the crypt, like Malone once did in my office carpet.  Even such a minor desecration makes me feel guilty.  I’m just here for a few days.  But to these other bones, this is their final resting place.  I should be a more considerate guest.

The glow from the end of my cigarette when I inhale is dim enough that my dead-sight still works.  Good thing, too.  I’d hate to stumble in the dark and knock over the bourbon.

Betty’s words in the diner come back to me:  tobacco nourishes death.  Well, in my case bullets beat it to the punch, but that’s why I still enjoy smokes while food, which nourishes life, gives me no pleasure.

Booze?  That seems like a gray area to me.

Sitting at the desk, I pull over one of the glasses and tap my cigarette ashes into it.  Until I get a proper ashtray it’ll do.  I’ve made enough of a mess as a guest here.  The other glass I set next to the decanter, and pull out the top once again.  I carefully pour myself two fingers of bourbon, and set the decanter back down and cap it.  Moment of truth.

I sniff the bourbon, and there’s a hint of a bitter, nutty aroma to it that complements it well.  I take a sip.

…

I’ve had good bourbon before.  Smooth, smoky, and slightly sweet.  But now I feel like I’ve just tasted it for the first time.  I have no idea what brand or label of bourbon is in this decanter, but this is top-shelf stuff.

I’m not too proud to admit, I’ve got a tear in my eye.  With all that I’ve lost, suddenly the little, simple pleasures that I still can enjoy mean that much more.

I sip the rest of the bourbon in the glass very slowly, savoring the taste of each drop.  The smoky, nutty, sweet taste sprinkling lightly on my tongue.  After I’ve finished my drink and my cigarette, I feel more alive than I’ve felt since I woke up in Betty’s chalk circle.

That’s when I notice the lamps.  There are a couple of unlit kerosene lamps here too.  One on the desk in front of me, and another one over by the wardrobe, on top of one of the cabinets.  They were there all along.  I just didn’t notice them until now.

Betty brought all this stuff down here, just so I’d have a place to stay.  She may have raised me tonight, but she’s been planning this for a while.

And besides all the furniture, and the most expensive tasting liquor that’s ever graced my unworthy mouth, she also brought a pair of kerosene lamps.  So I’d have light down here.  To see.

She doesn’t know I can see in the dark?  Maybe she really didn’t know about the iron.  What else doesn’t she know about me?

Is she wrong about Lana?

I mean, about my being able to talk to Lana.  See her again.  As far as I know Betty’s never met Lana.  But that whole business about Unfinished Business…I’d give up being able to enjoy bourbon and cigarettes if I could have another chance to…to…

Of course there are tears in my eyes.  Crypts are dusty places.

Flash Fiction: The Blood Lottery

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My entry to Chuck Wendig’s Flash Fiction Challenge.  There have been a lot of really sad entries to these challenges of late, so I thought I’d try a different take.

The Blood Lottery

 Helena shivered as the cold spring breeze cut through her thin cloak. The scent of freshly tilled earth and young growing things filled the air. A time of rebirth. A time of blood sacrifice to keep the monster from devouring the calves, lambs and newly planted fields.

Even standing in the center of the crowd, Helena felt alone. Her mother had been sacrificed first, then her older sister had been taken by the blood lottery five years later. Her younger sister’s name had been called last spring.

No one stood up for them as most were happy it wasn’t their friends or family. And who would miss a poor washer woman and her impoverished children?

Helena suspected that the lottery was not random as it was supposed to be. It had been a long time since a merchant had been chosen and longer still that an aristocrat had.

The poor, the misfits, the criminals unfit for hard labor. Those were the ones that somehow were chosen time and time again. And she fit two of the three criteria. Helena assumed the only reason she hadn’t been chosen yet was Lord Lothar’s lustful interest in the washer girl who read books. But that shred of protection was gone when she’d refused to jump into his bed. She’d take her chances with the rigged lottery.

Fear knotted her chest as she watched the sheriff roll out the silver basket filled with names. She knew, and yet, it was supposed to be a lottery…

She held her breath as the priest reached into the basket and drew out a name.

Her name.

The crowd parted like a sea around her, afraid to get too close to the condemned woman. She swallowed back the fear. Time to join her mother and sisters in the great beyond.

Helena said nothing even as the guards swooped in and yanked her forward. Lothar leered down at her from the podium, a dark smile twisting his lips as they bound her arms behind her back. He sat back and watched as they dragged her through the streets toward the Tower of God.

Helena kept her face blank as her heart pounded against her ribs. She’d done the right thing rejecting Lothar. Her mother’s willingness to bed a nobleman and let him sire her three daughters had done nothing to protect any of them. Nothing to feed them. And the nobleman had been quite willing to sacrifice his illegitimate daughters when knowledge of them had become inconvenient.

Steadying her breathing, Helena said a prayer to Thalia. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about how she was going to eat tonight.

They reached the gleaming silver temple overlooking the jagged Dragon Cliffs. Helena had only a moment to take in the glorious windswept valley and jagged peaks before the guards forced her up the almost endless flight of stairs to the top of the Tower of God. The icy wind tugged her mahogany hair from its braid, twisting the shining tendrils as they bound her to the pole.

A guard drew his dagger and sliced her wrist.

Helena yelped, watching her blood flow from the wound and drip down her hand and over her cloak. The only cloak she owned. Not that she would need it much longer.

The moment her blood touched the Tower of God, she heard it. A deep, low rumble that made her stomach climb into her throat.

The guards heard it too and raced back down the stairs.

Growing louder, the rumble filled her ears and shook the ground. The entire temple swayed, and had she not been bound to the pole, Helena would’ve tumbled onto the jagged rocks below.

A moment later she saw it.  Her eyes saucered. As large as the temple itself, the silver dragon glittered in the afternoon sunlight as it glided through the cold air.

Before she could think, before she could offer another prayer to Thalia, it dived at her.

She closed her eyes and screamed.

But there was no pain. She opened her eyes, expecting to be dead, but instead she found herself soaring over forests and streams so fast that they disappeared beneath her in a panoply of color. A wave of nausea hit her, and she buried her face in her arm as she steadied her stomach.

Collecting herself, she took several slow breaths and looked up. A basket made out of strong but flexible reeds surrounded her and protected her from the dragon’s razor sharp claws. Was the beast taking her home to eat her? Or taking her as a meal for its children?

The dragon snorted above her, and Helena fell back against the basket.

I have no intention of eating you, and I have no children to feed you to.

There was bitterness in the words, and she looked up at the beast’s claws surrounding her.

“I can hear your thoughts?”

If I so wish it.

Helena said nothing and tried to keep her mind blank as she gazed down at the blur of landscape below them. The dragon’s flight felt effortless, yet she knew they were crossing in minutes what would have taken hours.

At last his pace started to slow and he spiraled upward. Helena clung to the sides of the basket. The dragon cleared the top of a mountain and descended into the valley below.

Lush, green, and full of life.

Given their altitude, it should have been snow-covered; instead she saw farmers’ fields already sprouting and orchards in bloom. The rich scent played off the cold glacial smell of the dragon.

Another flap of his wings and they were gliding over towns and climbing towards a large castle that glittered like ice.

The dragon circled the castle then landed with a cat’s grace in the windswept courtyard. The doors to the castle opened and a group of revelers raced outside, their arms laden with flowers as they welcomed her.

Helena’s eyes widened and tears streamed down her cheeks as she saw her sisters and her mother running toward her.

“Am I dead?” Helena asked as she hugged her mother.

Her mother shook her head as she brushed away Helena’s tears. “This is Dragon Valley. Lord Ander brought us here, as he brought you.”

“I thought…” Helena said and looked back at the massive silver dragon.

A blast of magic puffed her cloak, and where the dragon had been stood a man with silver hair and eyes bluer than the sky. A well dressed courtier hurried forward and draped an exquisite white cape over Ander’s shoulders.

“Let the feasting begin. The girl is hungry.” Oblivious to his nakedness, Ander left them as he strode into the castle.

“Still not the one,” Helena’s mother whispered. Looking down, she said a prayer.

“Not the one?” Helena asked.

Her mother hugged her. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s go enjoy the feast celebrating your arrival. We’ll have plenty of time to explain later.”

Dressed in a warm cape and clean clothes, Helena ate her fill for the first time in her life. Still not totally convinced this wasn’t heaven, she looked towards the glittering castle and wondered about the man that had given her a new life.

3 Things to Do When You Just Don't Wanna Write Anymore

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I am supposed to be doing yet another revision then packaging up my manuscript for submission. Again.

It didn’t start out as a terrible revision. Give the heroine a bit more backstory and a secret about what she did to survive as a serf in a land ruled by undead. Make the hero want more than just to take her to safety. Make him want to know the ins and outs of how the home she’s escaping from works to give his side an advantage should it come to war.

Seemed easy enough.

Then I started worrying that maybe the hero came off as too soft and needed to make sure his alpha characteristics came through. Also doable.

But I don’t wanna. I just don’t.

Sure, I spend my hour a day sitting in front of the computer screen, but it’s not the same. I feel like my creativity disappeared and took any desire I had to write with it. I used to skip off to my laptop after the kids were in bed and try to snitch a few extra minutes here and there. Now, I boot up Word and just sort of look at it before letting Time Thieves steal into my thoughts.

  • DD could use a new raincoat. And maybe a swimsuit for this summer.
  • Do I need to put another order in for diapers for the baby?
  • Ooooh, MacBook in rose gold with the new skylake processor. I need a new laptop. When does the MacBook pro come out with skylake?

I’d love to give you three steps I used to get my mojo back, but I haven’t found them yet.

DH asked me why I write. I have thought long and hard about it, and I don’t know. It’s a lot of work. Hours and hours of work. I have been writing on and off since I was a kid. I write for a while, get discouraged and put it away, only to bring it out again years later.

So why do I get discouraged? I have finished several novels in my lifetime. None of them published.

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And there it is.

All this work, all this effort, and never the validation that its even worth someone else reading.

I “know” publishing isn’t the end all and be all of being a writer, but it is a part of it. How many artists would spend 150 hours or more on a painting only to stuff it in a closet for no one to see?

I’d love to give you a list of what I’ve done to get back my mojo. I don’t have one yet. But here are:

Three Things I’m Doing When I Just Don’t Wanna Write Anymore

  1. Sit at the computer every night – I am still spending my hour working on my manuscript every night. No, it’s not as productive as it was, but I don’t want to lose this hour I’ve carved out for myself
  2. Read More – I’m still a much bigger fan of printed books than ebooks, but I am learning to be okay with ebooks because there are so many more titles available for them. I then went and bought (read some, still reading others) a couple of books I normally wouldn’t have. Thinking through what I like and don’t like about a new-to-me author has helped me think about some of own work in a different way.
  3. Exercising – I still have issues with the ankle I broke back in November and am starting physical therapy for it. Part of this process included the doctor giving me clearance for low impact exercise, so I can now walk or use my elliptical again. If I’m on the elliptical, I read. If I walk, I chat with DH or just let myself think.

Follow Your Passion: Write What You Love

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I write fantasy romance novels because that is what I love. Magic, knights, necromancers, and dragons. A hero and heroine who will fight through everything thrown at them and then live happily ever. It’s not a popular area of writing, not like Regency, nor is it the “next up and coming thing”.

But I both love to read it, and I love to write it. (When I can find the kind of work I like to read, anyway. If you know any Stephanie Laurens meets Tolkien authors, let me know!

When I am working in my world, and it frequently is work, it’s a place I want to be with characters I love or love to hate.

FantasyWoman

This is the TED talk I watched while on maternity leave and is what inspired me to write again: https://www.ted.com/talks/larry_smith_why_you_will_fail_to_have_a_great_career?language=en

Putting it succinctly, Larry Smith tells you to follow your passion. To do what you would do even if you weren’t paid for it.

It really put into context a lot of things for me.

Or maybe it spurred a midlife crisis.

Either way, it got me to write again.

After subscribing to the Writer’s Digest to get electronic access to agents and publishers, I have also been put on their “send me tons of advertising” list.

I’m amazed at how many solicitations I’ve received. I’m starting to think there are more people making a living on “helping” people become writers than there are people making a living writing.

But I digress. One of the classes that stood out to me was the one showing me how to make a career out of writing. The ad was something like:  “The Top 9 Most Lucrative Writing Opportunities.”  It’s selling point was that it wasn’t novel writing or anything like it.

Which wasn’t a selling point to me. The whole ad felt so much like a scam that I was reminded of those signs on the side of the road –  “Make $2,000 a week from home!”.

Whether it was a scam or not, if you already have a day job that pays the bills, why would you want to do this? Why would you want to trade your current career for a writing gig you don’t actually want to do?

Even if it isn’t a scam, that’s not following your passion.

I say write what you love. Bring your passion. Love your characters. Love how they change through the crucible of your plot.

Your readers will see this, and they will love right along with you.

And it will make the hours of work worth it to you because you are doing what you love.

I’ve never heard of a single “mega-author” admitting that they wrote something they didn’t love. Or that they wrote it because it was “trending” or “made money”. Some authors single-handedly made new genres by writing what they loved (Tolkien comes to mind).

If you’re going to spend the hours writing it, make it something you love. Something you’re proud of. Your passion.