The Woeful Writer

            Time flies when you’re writing a story. That doesn’t sound quite right, does it. Kind of a pity really. There’s so much involved in writing a novel that it doesn’t really feel like a whole lot of fun. Maybe that’s where a lot of us go wrong.

            The first thing I wrote was a 150k word novel. Yep, I went big. Of course I didn’t know just how big it really was at the time. The only thing I knew was just how much fun it was to write the story. It didn’t feel like work. It felt like I was reading the novel, soaking up each little turn and sub plot as it got displayed magically on the laptop monitor.

           

            It was so much fun. And it wasn’t the only time I felt it. Each time I started a new project, whether it was a full on novel or short story, I’d lose myself in the characters world as they stumbled their way to whatever havoc I created for them. Even creating queries were fun (well partially).

            That’s where I think a lot of people go wrong—myself included. When we query an agent, we start thinking more professional. It’s a good thing, to some extent. After all, you’ll never get picked up if your query looks like it was written by someone who’s biggest accomplishment was sinking the cheerio with their pee-pee. But the problem could be that we don’t remember to have fun again. From there on in, it’s all about the business.

            I guess what I’m trying to say is this. We’re creating stories to entertain people. That should never be taken too seriously. It’s not like we’re literally curing cancer or raising the dead. So relax everyone. Have fun and enjoy your work. Make someone smile, and hopefully get paid to do it. Seriously.

           

            Auzy