I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my chosen topics and genres. I know I’m not writing things that are going to be top sellers because they aren’t what people are reading at the moment and while I believe I’m a good writer and I write readable and enjoyable books, I don’t believe my stories are going to be the next Harry Potter or Twilight in terms of originality and scope. My fantasy isn’t dystopian or filled with vampires (although my sequel to Cleah has some really hideous Dark things that kill people and devour souls), and I don’t write romance because it just doesn’t call to me, and my YA mystery is edgy to some degree but the herione isn’t popular or trendy. I also don’t write cozies or adult murder mysteries. My short stories are each different, but they are about surviving despite the odds and they don’t always have the nicest of lead characters.

So, I can’t help but ask myself this question: “Hey Brenda, if you want to write books that sell, why don’t you pick topics that people are reading?” Well, I have to reply to myself “I don’t really know.” I do know that the stories that pop into my head just seem to arrive without warning. One day they aren’t there and the next day they are. My short stories felt like I was channeling, as did the first Cleah (this second book is much more work – no invisible winged muse sitting on my shoulder and channeling the words to me on this one). I wrote the YA with the topic of a foster child as the heroine because of the kind of work I do – I wanted foster children to have a character in a book who was like them – there aren’t many out there.

I also know that if you pick a topic to be on the band wagon you have to write quickly because that wagon passes by before you can blink – or in the case of us struggling writers – faster than you can get an agent and a book deal. That means that if I picked a YA fantasy of dystopian worlds or vampires that trend would be gone by the time my book saw print. I also know that I am limited by my own reality – I am who I am and I want to tell my stories, not alternate versions of others.

I’m not saying that the reason I’m not a best seller is because I write the wrong story line and that those of you who are more successful are just riding a trend – I truly don’t mean that – but I do believe that for myself – a good writer but not a Charles Dickens or an Emily Bronte or JK Rowling in terms of innovation and scope – I just sometimes wonder if I shouldn’t be more attentive to the current reading habits of my prospective target audience.

Well, I don’t have an answer for myself. What about you?

I have four fiction books -one not up on Kindle yet- in four different genres. I intend to write sequels to the Cleah Chronicles and to the Shay James Mystery, and I’d like to finish a mystery I started a few years ago about a coroner (I was a coroner for three years – my favorite job I’ve ever had). I realize, however, that successful writers aka writers who actually make a living at writing – tend to stick to one genre and get known in that. They build a following and create a niche for themselves. Why don’t I do that? Do you?

I don’t do it because I have different stories floating around in my head and I want to tell them all. I guess they will be stuck there for some time to come because I don’t have any writing time in my day – and don’t tell me to get up at 5 a.m. to write because I already get up then to do other stuff that’s necessary in my day. Anyway, I’m currently 1/3 of the way through the next Cleah book and I feel a strong need to finish that. It feels like the characters are taking up space in my brain and I need the room. Does that sound too weird to you? Do you ever feel like that? No, it isn’t any form of psychosis – I know they aren’t real – but the neurons they inhabit have energy and flow and exist in time and space even if that space is my grey matter.

Well, maybe I should just buckle down and do it!!!

I wonder if anyone ever “becomes a writer” or if we simply start that way but wait till something triggers us to actually start putting the words on paper (or computer)? I always knew I wanted to write – I knew I was good at it and even though I got A’s in English and Creative Writing in high school, I was never encouraged to follow that. Don’t get me wrong – I received lots of encouragement to go after whatever I was in the mood to pursue that day or week, and when I finally settled on first nursing and then later going back to school to become a mental health clinician everyone seemed to think that was the best fit for me. Still, I wanted to write.

I look back over my life now and I wonder why the hell I didn’t go into Creative Writing at the start? It couldn’t have been because I was afraid of failure – at that stage of my life I was so naive and arrogant that failure never entered my mind. It couldn’t have been because I was afraid of not making enough money  because again, at that stage in my life I assumed I would do well at anything and everything (life has since taught me otherwise).

I finally got the kick to put my first book together – a self-help about fetal alcohol spectrum disorder – when I realized there were no books on the topic – this was back in the early 90′s – and I thought someone – me – had better write one. I didn’t get around to fiction until several years later and I’m only now doing anything about marketing them. I do understand that delay – the writing is the easy part – finding the time to do the rest of it is time-consuming and with 14 children and a full-time career – time is the most valued and limited commodity in my life.

What finally got you moving  - or are you young enough and smart enough to know that you are a writer now?

Well, whatever your process and wherever you are in your writing – have your best day possible.

Thanks for your nice experience to share with us. Really awesome article with plenty of informative things to be known for us.
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Hello – thank you for stopping by. I have moved to a new site – go to http://www.brendamccreight.blogspot.com and check it out. All of my writing ventures are now situated there and waiting for you to say “hi”.

Have your best day possible.

Here is a great article on how to sell your self published ebooks on Kindle. It was written by M. Lousia Locke and originally posted on The Henderson Files blog .  The author has given me permission to re-post. Well worth your time to read through this. At the end of this post is a synopsis of the author’s book for your perusal. Enjoy learn and have your best day possible!

Interview with M. Louisa Locke