Stephen King and Love?

The King's Rules
Alrighty, after several days off from blogging, or blarghing as I say, I'm back! I'm still new to this and in all honestly haven't gotten a good routine down, nor the dedication to stay focused. I'm working on that, but enough about me, sort of. Today, I'm going to be talking about the King, Stephen King.

A while ago, in an attempt to improve my own writing abilities, I purchased Stephen King's: On Writing Novel. I haven't finished, but so far, it's been well worth it. And I wanted to start sharing the lessons I've learned from there as well as any tips I've gleaned. I might also be throwing in my own thoughts and experiences with these tidbits because, well why not? I am the filter through which these tips are going to be shared, well on this blog at least.

So I figured I'd start with this, something I've touched on a bit before, writing what YOU love. It's a common problem I've noticed in authors, myself included of course. Deciding between what you love to write, what you want to write as opposed to what you think will sell! Well in his book, Stephen King makes it pretty clear that you should write what YOU want! That's what's going to make it special, unique and maybe stand out. You're more likely to put your heart and soul, your all into something you love to write instead of something you think will make money. And plus, how do you honestly know what will sell? Well do you? Do you have a print sheet with a guarantee on it of what will sell in the years to come?

I didn't think so.

So if there's all this uncertainty around what will and what won't sell, why not write what you want and love? Makes sense to me. Plus, in my mind, the logic exists that if you love it, you'll be more willing to work harder on it, thus probably produce a better project. There will be long endless nights of burning the midnight oil but you will love doing it, it won't feel like work, it'll be a compulsion, an obsession.

Remember, this isn't just about writing a best seller or two, this is about your life and passion, unless you are solely writing just to make money, in which case, you're in the wrong profession. There are tons of jobs where you can make money, this is a career where you do something YOU love...........I hope. It's always going to be a struggle at first, King had a whole bunch of rejections but he never stopped writing what he wanted and look at him now! Proof enough? Over all the years of writing, since when has he changed his style or type of books he writes? They're all very...............Stephen King.....ish. That's what you can say about him, sure many of his books are horror-ish, but that's not all he writes. But, everything he does write, you instantly know it's him!

That's what this is about writing what you love to help better define yourself, your style and career and thus, establish your career. You are inherently unique, so writing what you love will help establish you as..........well you! You will become synonymous with your work which sort of makes sense. It's about being true to you, how can you honestly write a book if it comes from some notion outside yourself, a notion that if you write a certain genre or novel, it will sell better than what you want to write? It doesn't make sense, YOUR NAME is going to be on the cover, it might as well be your story and a story that you wanted to write! Get it yet?

So far, coming to grips with that notion has helped me tremendously, and now, well now I write what I want and for one, it's made me considerably happier. But also, it's helped me narrow my focus on learning from similar authors in that genre and thus, I've steadily been improving, see the connection yet? I'm loving reading their works, writing similar things, learning and thus getting better. It's an all around win! You can't do that if you're just trying to copy bestsellers you don't have any appreciation or love for. And for the record, there's nothing wrong with imitating an authors style, imitation and sincere flattery and all you know. Not to mention The King approves it, so why shouldn't we do it too!?

King talks a great deal about fossils and digging things up, unearthing them, when speaking about writing novels. He's right, that's the way it feels to me and so, how are you going to improve as an author if you're only copying or chasing after bestsellers? You need to write what you love, develop yourself, imitate a few authors, that's how you can find out (by experience, the best teacher) what works and what doesn't. It helps narrow things down, refine them and yourself! Your technique will develop the more you write, and that only happens if you love what you write, trying to write things you think will be bestsellers will just wear and force you to quit. If you don't enjoy it, how and why will you stick to it? So then how will you become better? If you don't become better, how will your works earn and push their way to the forefront and become bestsellers?

See what I mean?

Plus, like I mentioned before, it's so much more fun, just trust me. As authors, I'm sure you've all had millions of ideas floating around in your head, which ones excite you more, random bestsellers you would hate to write, or those more close to your heart? Novels much like your own favorites, akin to maybe some of your fav shows and the like? It's not about writing a bestseller because someone else did, or copying one to make money, it's about writing what you love and making THAT into a bestseller get it!?

Why can't your own work, your own labor of love make it onto headlines and bookshelves across the world?! Gaiman, King and more have done it, and they've done it that way, writing what they love. So.............if they did it that way, why shouldn't we, why shouldn't you? Why deviate from an obvious fool proof plan, and an enjoyable one at that. If ain't broke, don't fix it right? Well clearly it ain't broke, The King is still a bestseller and is writing what he wants how he wants, of course it's easy to say he's a bestseller because of his name. He can put that on anything and it will sell, but remember, there was a time where no one knew him. He EARNED that name and did so by again ahem *cough cough* writing what he wanted/loved. Building his name, you're going to have to do that to, so do it! Write what you want and people who love the same stuff will gravitate towards it, the more you write what you love, the more people who love the same stuff will flock towards you. So yeah. thoughts for the day. hope it helped!