For those of you who don’t know (I’m addressing my non-existent audience and my grandmother, by the way), I’m tackling Camp Nano this July. So, the past few months have been spent on world-building. This month I started on my character development and plot. I do a lot of research, and not all of it has to do with setting or psychology of characters. I like to read what other authors and readers have to say. I eat up posts of story structure, or what others think makes a story great (even if it’s subjective).
And sometimes, in the midst of all of this advice, I get insecure. I often wonder if other writers feel this way – if we’re somehow wired to go deep into the minds of the people we create and the effect that empathetic nature has on our own mental state (that’s another blog post entirely). But the fact is, I often second-guess myself – I get so lost in the maze because I’m trying to avoid tropes, or cliches, or whatever… And sometimes in the midst of trying to be a better writer, I lose sight of the part of myself I should be trying to please: the part of me that is a reader. In the search to find/create/write a story that will please others, I forget that I need to please myself first.
I like dark themes in fiction. The exploration of sexuality, the dark side of human nature, the parts of my own mind that I hide from the world (and sometimes, from myself). I like to watch someone (a hero, a heroine…) have to adapt to survive, to be pushed to their limits and have to evolve or die. I’ll chose an anti-hero over a hero any day of the week. My favorite series heroine is a damaged, insecure drug addict who lives in the bleakest, most hopeless world imaginable and only keeps going because the afterlife is far bleaker than her reality.
My mind isn’t filled with sunshine and rainbows and happy endings. When I’m alone and curled up with a book, I don’t have to pretend that it is.
I just need to allow myself the same freedom when I write.
So, if you’re doing Nano this month, and you’re in the mood to take advice from the likes of me, let it be this:
Don’t let marketing trends dictate your story. Don’t let negative reviews dictate your brainstorming. Don’t listen to the snarky know-it-alls that want to convince you that everything under the sun is wrong, that what you like is wrong, that your idea is bad… Don’t get discouraged.
photo credit: madamepsychosis via photopin cc
Find an idea you love, put ass in chair, and write the story you want to read.
Anyone else doing Camp Nano this year?
How do you deal with insecurity when writing?
ashleycliston 