I've touched previously on writing what you know, but I wanted to talk about growth and personal development, on figuring out what you love and then expanding on it.
There's a big trend right now to push doing what you love, as well as a very interesting counter argument to the trend, which states that the culture of doing what you love devalues honest workers and their labor. What I want to talk about is those honest workers, because when you get right down to it, writing is a very thankless job, with long hours and stress equal to any company job I've held. This message, then, is for those who have already decided to write, who know and appreciate the labor behind it.
In the writing of my first book, "Jupiter Symphony," I forced myself to come clean, copying down exactly what interested me in fiction, and then working to compose something that touched on those elements. In doing so, I accepted that I had no desire to write the great American novel, and that there was a niche genre that spoke to me, so that's what I would write. I'm not going to be Shakespeare, nor would I care to be. That doesn't mean I can't take my writing seriously, working professionally to compose a great story that is also relevant and entertaining.
My second book expanded on this strategy, picking out a single element that I felt strongly for and drawing it into a story, bringing greater focus to the point I was trying to make and weaving a tighter, more focused narrative. Though that story is still in the works (and needed a painful rewrite of the ending), I can already tell that I've taken the lessons learned from my first book and built upon them. This is really the thing to consider: finishing one book does not return you to an imaginary baseline, starting over from scratch with the next manuscript. Instead, reflect back on how your writing has changed over the course of tens of thousands of words, building a new platform from which to start anew.
I feel that in my case, this will also lead to expanding my focus to other genres. I originally had no interest in things outside of hard sci-fi and classical Japanese samurai tales, but lately I've had this weird itch, a growing rash to write something very human, something very personal. The things I love to write about have become my jumping off point, my way of expanding into new fields, broadening my knowledge and skill set, pushing me to seek greater challenges. It occurs to me now that this posting is very similar to some of my previous compositions, but that's really the point of this blog, isn't it? To expand and to grow, but to do so with a road map, touching on the fundamentals, using them to lay down steps to new stages of progress.
A.C. Harrison
Support indie authors! Like me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter.
There's a big trend right now to push doing what you love, as well as a very interesting counter argument to the trend, which states that the culture of doing what you love devalues honest workers and their labor. What I want to talk about is those honest workers, because when you get right down to it, writing is a very thankless job, with long hours and stress equal to any company job I've held. This message, then, is for those who have already decided to write, who know and appreciate the labor behind it.
In the writing of my first book, "Jupiter Symphony," I forced myself to come clean, copying down exactly what interested me in fiction, and then working to compose something that touched on those elements. In doing so, I accepted that I had no desire to write the great American novel, and that there was a niche genre that spoke to me, so that's what I would write. I'm not going to be Shakespeare, nor would I care to be. That doesn't mean I can't take my writing seriously, working professionally to compose a great story that is also relevant and entertaining.
My second book expanded on this strategy, picking out a single element that I felt strongly for and drawing it into a story, bringing greater focus to the point I was trying to make and weaving a tighter, more focused narrative. Though that story is still in the works (and needed a painful rewrite of the ending), I can already tell that I've taken the lessons learned from my first book and built upon them. This is really the thing to consider: finishing one book does not return you to an imaginary baseline, starting over from scratch with the next manuscript. Instead, reflect back on how your writing has changed over the course of tens of thousands of words, building a new platform from which to start anew.
I feel that in my case, this will also lead to expanding my focus to other genres. I originally had no interest in things outside of hard sci-fi and classical Japanese samurai tales, but lately I've had this weird itch, a growing rash to write something very human, something very personal. The things I love to write about have become my jumping off point, my way of expanding into new fields, broadening my knowledge and skill set, pushing me to seek greater challenges. It occurs to me now that this posting is very similar to some of my previous compositions, but that's really the point of this blog, isn't it? To expand and to grow, but to do so with a road map, touching on the fundamentals, using them to lay down steps to new stages of progress.
A.C. Harrison
Support indie authors! Like me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter.
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