I can't help but picture Captain America looking straight into the camera at you as you read that title explaining the ins and outs of being an author. Part of the reason I chose that title, to be honest, is to throw a bit of a laugh at this whole “blog posts on writing” thing.
Any time I sit down to write a post on writing I know that I do it at the risk of sounding patronizing, not unlike our favorite stars-and-stripes superhero in tights.
I've never won a prize for writing, I've never made a best-seller list, I don't have an English degree (yet) and my first published work had so many typos and grammar errors in it for the first 3 years of it's published life that it looked like it had been written by a child (which arguably it had).
I'm not here as a wise mentor. No. I stand as one stumbling, stuttering artist to another. I'm not here to say “here's how to be amazing” but to say “you already are” and to plead with you to not sell your soul in your pursuit of making others believe that.
No one gets into writing for the glory. More often the story is like mine. That you have some world in your mind that you escape to. Some place that makes you feel safe and welcome. Somewhere where boys and girls are treated as equal, somewhere where you make a difference, somewhere where people get along in harmony, where injustice is stopped and love is valued.
You write because you see a problem in the world and you want to see that problem fixed. Let me be the first to tell you that that is the most important thing you need to be an author. The mechanics you can learn. The rules are all written down in volumes of encyclopedias but creativity and drive– that's something that no one can teach you. You have a passion already inside you.
Don't let anyone tell you that your passion is invalid.
So let's say you write your first draft. Your characters are your best friends and now you want to share them with the world and the next thing you know you're hit in the face with these words:
OVERCOMPLEX
UNORIGINAL
CHEESY
UNMARKETABLE
BORING
You wipe your tears, clean your smeared mascara, dust off your books on marketing and english and start studying. The words above follow you everywhere you go. Because these are the words people use to express a disconnect. Sometimes your writing was unclear and there are things you could do to make it clearer. Sometimes your vocabulary was too advanced for your target market. Sometimes your sentence structure could be perfected. Sometimes you take a year off or two...or three...or four... to try to market your book to a cold and uncaring world.
If it's not clear by now this isn't a random hypothetical. This is the approach I took to writing and by the end I picked up my debut novel and stared at it dead-eyed, wondering why I ever loved it to begin with and feeling completely incapable of writing anything again.
It took time. Disconnecting from the “writing world” and their opinions. Getting back in touch with the characters and writing habits that made me fall in love with it to begin with. The 3AM roleplaying in chatrooms. The lying in the grass doodling fairies and making up worlds for them to live in. The writing all the adventures in far away places that I wanted to have.
At the end of it all I found myself back where I was years ago. Back to writing stories that most people didn't care about. And that was okay.
Sure I'd learned a lot from my years trying so hard to “make it big” but in the process I'd nearly lost everything.
Having the passion to write, my young apprentice, is not something everyone has. It's a dear friend to be protected and loved. Guard it with your heart. Even if you want to take time away to refine your craft, please, dear earnest heart, never give up on your passion just because someone else doesn’t get it.
Your story is beautiful because you know that it is. Because it makes you smile. And that's the kind of passion that's far more important than selling books or becoming a well known author. That's the kind of passion that will be there when everyone else is gone on to the next popular thing. That's the kind of passion that you have to hold onto in this crazy insane world when all else slaps you in the face.
That's the kind of passion, the kind that comes from inside, that makes you a brilliant writer.
By Solivagant Writer,
Chris Pennington
Give some love to Chris on Instagram and Twitter @theepicplace for being Solivagant Writers' first guest writer! Leave your thoughts and comments of this weeks post below. Thanks for reading Solivgant Writers' first blog post!