Are you telling stories...or immortalizing crap?

Image: ©hvaldez1, December 2008If you’re thinking just about what you can get out of it, you’re probably writing a crappy book, and your crap will be forever immortalized in black and white.

Guy Kawasaki advises, "Write a book because you have something important to say."

Kawasaki is talking about non-fiction in the Forbes piece quoted above — but extrapolate and apply the concepts to fiction. Unless every book is the much-maligned “book of your heart,” you’re playing the wrong game. No matter how many words you vomit onto pages daily, how much you hone your craft, how manic you are with promotion, how many friends and family members and other writers you convince to like and tag and talk about your books ad nauseam … the moment you lose sight of the story as the thing that really matters, you’re finished.

Always write the story of your heart. If your stories haven’t left scars all over your heart, they sure as heck won’t even nick anyone else’s.