A Writer's Blog

Here's the thing about blogs - each blog is just one individual's opinion/perspective on a subject. This blog is my perspective (and sometimes opinion) on writing.

I'm not an expert and . . . I don't play one on TV. Ha! I'm just a writer, struggling along, and hoping that, one day - hopefully soon - an agent will take notice of my query and ask for more, more, more!

I write to the best of my ability. I read blog after blog, intake the knowledge, shuffle it around a few dozen times . . . and toss out what I don't need.

Why?

Because not every don't do this applies to every individual writer.

There isn't a definitive writer's guide that says write this way and you'll succeed. If there was, there would be far less aspiring writers out there in the blogsphere.

There are guidelines - seemingly everywhere - that say do this, do that, don't do this, don't do that and yet . . . if you read debut authors, if you see what they did and didn't do . . . you might find that they ignored all those rules so easily found within the blogsphere.

Hmmmm . . .

No, I'm not advocating tossing aside every rule. I think - maybe know, check back with me on that one - that too much information is a bad, bad thing because, often, with too much information, people begin to second-guess themselves.

Yes, been there, done that.

I can't write like Tolkien.

I can't write like Mary Higgins Clark.

I can write like me, using the knowledge I've gleaned over the years, the blogs I've read, the books I've read, tossing out rules willy-nilly, and nilly-will as well, and writing what feels comfortable to me.

If I follow every piece of advice offered . . . I'm doing myself a disservice. No, I'm not advocating discarding the bits of knowledge. But, I am suggesting, in addition to the many blogs that are so very helpful, to also read, read, and read . . . books, and more books, and more books, and more books, and more books - by established and debut authors, but more so by debut authors.

Why?

Not to copy them, emulate them, or any other such thing . . . but to see what rules they broke, how they broke them, and to understand - if that's possible - why it worked for them.

In the end, the craft of writing is finding your own, well, voice.

If you do everything out there on the blogsphere, every bit of advice, you're silencing your voice . . .

. . . because you've stopped listening to yourself, your instinct, and started paying far too much attention to what works for . . .

. . . somebody else.

In the end, it is what works for you (me), the individual writer, that is (perhaps, should) matter most.

The blogs - at least in my opinion, this one included - are meant to guide you . . . and not to silence your voice.

For every rule to follow, there is a person who broke said rule . . . and wasn't struck by lightning.

So, my advice/opinion - soak everything up, but understand, in the end, that you the individual, must do what's best for you . . . and your writing. Sometimes, the voice you create is created from broken rules that might . . .

S