While on my little hiatus, I have been doing some reckoning. Some of it has been good and some of it has been somewhat shocking.
So, one of the shocking realizations I have had is that I have to think and write and create beyond my own limited experiences. I know it sounds obvious but there’s nothing like an aha! moment to convince you of what you think you knew. I was reading an article on how to create heroines in romance novels that the modern woman can relate to. The article was quite good and it gave some awesome pointers.
But as I read the end of the article, I realized that my readers have all sorts of experiences. And while my own life serves as great inspiration for stories, it simply cannot be the only source of inspiration for the kinds of stories I want to tell. You should have seen how big my eyes got as it slowly dawned on me that there is nothing new I would be telling my future audiences and the magic sauce would have to be in my characters.
Oh man – stress!!!
I have this bad habit of writing about the same kind of woman over and over and over again. It happens mainly because I like to write by the seat of my pants… and it is great when I am doing it but when I am re-reading my writing, it sounds like I have the same woman running around in my stories.
And then I realized another thing. There is only one remedy to the one woman wonder problem – I have to plan my writing better. I have to get into the characters before I start writing the story and this is a more intense exercise than I thought.
My final epiphany (with a tiny ‘e’) was that it is time for me to honor the mechanics of writing and not just the inspiration and the art.
A bit tough, no?