The first audience to any story

The first person to read anything you write is you.

Before any story ever gets to leave your mind and get onto paper or electrons, it has to pass the single biggest test it’s ever put to.

Do YOU like it? Because if the answer to that question is no, the chances are you’ll never follow through with it, getting it down in solid form. How you tell the story to yourself is equally important as how you intend to tell it to others.

Does it enthrall you? Entertain you? Make you laugh? Make you cry? Make you want to IMMEDIATELY start writing it?

That last one might be the most important question of all. The more a story grips you, the more you’ll not just want to write it but HAVE to write it.

Not many things I’ve written have grabbed me so hard that I had to drop everything and commit them into creation. The ones that do, for me, they’re absolutely killer.

I guess I’m saying this here as a way of explaining to myself what makes me write on some days rather than others.

If it’s helpful to you, or sounds vaguely familiar, go with it.