I just turned in my first lesson from my writing course, From Writer to Author. It was hard, because it made me focus and refine my goals. The questions were about what I wanted to write and how I wanted to build a writing business.
Tiffany Colter and many of the other writers I’m reading focus a lot on the business aspect of writing. It is challenging to think about, but I know it is important. We creatives don’t often have a lot of business sense, and the earlier I think about the business side of things, the better off I will be.
The hardest part is that I want to do everything. I have always had this problem–I wanted to be a doctor, a lawyer, a person who runs an animal rescue organization, a teacher, and a writer. One of the nice things about being a journalist is that you get to be a dilettante. You can learn a little about a lot of things and put yourself in the place of people from different backgrounds. So I want to write sci fi, fantasy, important fiction, and erotica. I want to write a book about my dogs. I want to write articles on health and fitness and pop culture. And I want to be able to all of this while also having time to loll about watching tv and reading books and magazines.
I also had to cop to the fact that I am nervous (scratch that, scared to death) to show any of my fiction to anyone ever. I have had a lot of experience taking criticism on my articles and I really don’t hold anything I write in my nonfiction personally. But fiction is so personal–it is how I deal with my personal demons and experiences. I not only fear that people will think it is crap but also that they will see the real me.
You make some great points in your blog. The hardest part for me in my fiction is to go deeper.
I was at a conference two years ago where Liz Curtis Higgs spoke. She said that before a reader goes there a writer must go there.
If we want our reader’s heart to break, we must break our own heart. If we want our reader terrified, we need to shake with fear.
And then we put it on paper for others to criticize.
But, as you’ll find when you read books like Writing the Breakout Novel, as you develop your writing you build off of little pieces of yourself. Your characters become less you and are only pieces of you.
Keep writing!! You learn a great deal about yourself in the process.