What Voices Are You Listening to?
Choose wisely
I was talking to a good friend about writing, and about how I’m excited to try my hand at fantasy fiction again. (It’s been a while.)
Which sounds great, except for that voice that keeps asking (about any writing I do, but especially fiction): “What do you have to say that’s worth reading?”
Which really means: What is original or unique about it? Where’s the brilliant idea? How does it stand out? And does it differ enough to make it worth someone’s time to read it?
What the Experts Say, #1
Yes, I know the experts say that people who like genre fiction want certain things the same, and certain things different. That mix of the new and the familiar.
So a piece of genre fiction doesn’t need to be completely unique. In fact it’s worse if it is, because it won’t follow the conventions the reader is expecting.
That argument makes sense to me, because I’m sometimes that reader myself: one who likes certain kinds of stories and wants to read more of them. With a new spin, sure, but also comfortably familiar.
What the Experts Say, #2
I love this quote from Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert:
It might have been done before, but it hasn’t been done by you.
It gives me hope.
Because it follows, then, that:
Anything you write has a measure of originality to it, because it’ll be written by you, through your lens, with your language, from your truth…
Yes!
But...
What the Gremlins Say
There’s a gremlin inside that says: “Who are you to do this thing? What do you have to offer?”
The gremlins of self-doubt and fear, who’re never far away. Who pipe up even after a win (sometimes especially after a win), saying that my perspective, my art, my truth, is not valuable enough to put into the world.
Which some part of me doesn’t believe.
But the gremlins whisper those lies, over and over, until they begin to sound like the truth.
What My Soul Says
My soul says, “If you don’t write what’s inside you, you will regret it. Go make your thing. Do it anyway, even if no one but you ever reads it. Do it for yourself. And do it for the one person out there who might see it and be changed by it.”
So I'm choosing (again, and again) to listen to that voice, even when its soft, insistent whisper is drowned out by the teeth-gnashing chitter-chatter of the gremlins.
At such times, I can always steady my life once more by returning to my soul. I ask it, “And what is it that you want, dear one?”
The answer is always the same: “More wonder, please.” –Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic
What voices are you listening to?