We’re now onto Part 3 of Your Genuine Writer Review series, an analysis of how true you’re being to your writing self.
This isn’t an attempt to shame you into anything if you’re a little (or a lot) lacking in penning out who you truly are. It’s an encouraging call to let your genuine writer out to play instead of keeping him or her cooped up, fearful of outside opinions.
Part 1 introduced us to the concept of this awesome, freeing, fulfilling practice. And Part 2 got into the actual checklist, starting with how a genuine writer is true to himself or herself. This means on both an ethical and personal level, where writers have a strong understanding of what will uplift – and tear down – readers…
And what will uplift and tear down themselves.
“Your Genuine Writer Review – Part 2” is a great post with a lot of insight and inspiration. But it admittedly ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, asking how this form of genuineness can play out in your actual writing world.
Since Part 3’s main goal is to answer that question, let’s get right to it…
Genuine Writer Scenario 1: Perhaps you’re determined to be traditionally published. You’ve carefully considered your options, and you understand the pros and cons involved.
But you also know yourself. And while you had no problem getting up an hour early every morning to work on your manuscript, you genuinely can’t see yourself doing that to learn about marketing – which you already know consists of much more than simply telling your friends you just published a book. Yet along comes someone in your life to repeatedly throw the odds at you. With every good intention, he reminds you of how low your chances of getting traditionally published are.
“You’re wasting your time writing out query letters and sending them in,” he says. “You should just self-publish already. That may sound harsh, but I don’t want to see you waste your time.” In that case, you politely thank him for his opinion.
Then you stick to your careful analysis of the facts at hand. Genuine Writer Scenario 2: Perhaps you have a story plot in mind you’re exceptionally excited about. Yet someone tells you it’s not going to sell well because of X, Y and Z.
“That’s an unpopular subject matter,” she explains. Or “You could offend people with that.” Or “I don’t see how that can work out when everyone on Twitter supports the opposite side.”
In all honesty, she might be accurately describing the battle you’re setting yourself up for. What you want to write about really might not be popular. Perhaps it’s out of vogue, or maybe it’s a bit of truth that nobody wants to hear at the moment.
These are important considerations to process. But they should never be your final decision-makers. Not if you’re being true to your genuine writer self.
Genuine writers don’t operate to impress others. Though they hardly scorn accolades that do come their way, they largely operate to reach others or to improve themselves or to express themselves.
Maybe they even write because they love to write.
As such, peer pressure and other negative outside influences can’t and won’t affect them for long. For that matter, neither do negative internal influences.
That’s the subject of Part 4 next week: an important clarification of everything above for anyone who suffers from the tendency to get a big head.
In other words, calling all writers to attend.