Your book, your dreams ...

Recently two things happened.

The first was that a young writer has gotten back in touch with me. He had taken an unintended sabbatical from writing because he thought he was stuck in a rut. 

He loves writing Urban Fantasy, but felt like he couldn't add anything new to the genre -- that everything had been done before. Frustrated that he couldn't come up with a story idea free of cliche or tropes, he eventually stopped writing.

Now he's aiming to be back in the saddle with the goal getting up at 5 am and try to write something every day. Bless him, he's an early riser. For me, it's much more likely that I'll get a thousand words written than get up at that verboten hour. So what's gotten him writing again?

Pretty much a forgettabout attitude. 

For most writers that discover something new, two things happen. Either they catch lighting in a bottle; or they've found a great peanut butter/chocolate mix of ideas and imagery. (The current marketing shorthand for such things is "X"-punk.) So either you need luck or you need time to mix and match things to find that right combo. Your odds of doing so improve greatly by actually writing. So start writing.

But you want to bring something unique, something awesome to the table. Well, they say there are no new ideas, that even scifi concepts -- like robots -- can trace their mythical roots to the golem and living statues that date back to the first pages of recorded history. If that's true, what can you bring that's new?

Stories are a lot like people. The great ones have heart and brains, but they also a voice. And each voice is different. That's what you bring, so bring it! 

There is a time for writer to put their ego to the side. The first draft ain't the place for that, pardner. 

Oh, there was a second thing, wasn't there?

Yep. Lately, I've been noticing that my FB  and forum posts have been getting longer and longer. I've taken that as a sign that maybe my thoughts need a bigger space to stretch their legs. So you might see me blogging a bit more in the past.