Adventures in Writing: The Last Thing I Learned
What is the last thing you learned?
You want to know what I learned most recently? That butter IS good for me. Well, fictionally speaking.
This title has been mentioned to me by friends, someone running writing conventions, amazon, and I’m sure the universe. The last time when I saw the title mentioned in another email for a convention I’m joining digitally, I said okay already.
New Regret: Not buying this book when it was published because it may have saved me two years of writing strife.
I have never been so mad at myself. If you’re struggling with sales and reviews are lackluster or a book you didn’t have sparks for is selling like hotcakes and you have no idea why – buy this book.
Forgiveness Learned
A loved one asked me to read a series so they had someone to talk to about it. While there were certain things I enjoyed, my writer-brain was upset about the lack of building. Characters, World, and Plot.
I’ve read some long series in my past, and this one probably won’t get finished by me when new books come out. Unless I need to see people who are traumatized, tortured, and scenes with sex sprinkled like confetti glitter that have no context other than ‘oh hey I almost died again, let’s fuck’ type feels for me.
And even though these books were full of stuff that wasn’t my preferred brand of butter, I know other people are eating it by the serving spoon full because it’s theirs. And that’s okay. Plenty of stuff I read other people don’t like, even though I say ‘if you liked x, you’ll like z’ and they fluff it off, kind of like I did with 7FF.
But now I have the book, and everyone has their favorite butter, and hopefully they’ll like mine.
Lessons Learned about Butter
While my characters hand me a ton of fun fantasies and details about who they are and what they love, they’re also handing me gobs of butter I didn’t know existed.
So, if you’re having trouble finding that butter in your stories, take a quick look at your top comments from readers. Ask people to tell you what hit them hardest in the feels. Reread your favorite stories and write down the notes of the all the tasty butter you find there.
Learned About Myself
Abandoner writers start stories they never finish and lately that has been me.
“THE ABANDONER: You’re tip-tap-typing along on your work in progress when a pervading sense of doom stops your fingers in their tracks. SOMETHING IS WRONG with your book. You don’t know what it is, but you sense something isn’t quite jelling with the story’s situations and/or characters. You’ve amassed a pile of unfinished drafts on your desktop that deserve to be finished. But you don’t know how to proceed with that icky feeling in the pit of your stomach. Oh, the guilt!”
Taylor, T. 7 FIGURE FICTION: How to Use Universal Fantasy to SELL Your Books to ANYONE (Universal Fantasy: Butter Up Your Writing Book 1) (p. 7). Theodora Taylor. Kindle Edition.
This definition isn’t exactly my issue though. My abandonment is because the story is in my head and it plays out in various ways and I tweak them as I go, so it’s always better in my head and it’s rare for me to put the words down the way I used to.
But another book tells me some of that, thinking and tweaking the stories, might be my way of doing things, and when they’re done I’ll whip out my words like Catwoman.
Currently, I’m working on going through my scenes on Plottr and making sure there’s a dab of buttery goodness in there.
None of the book links are affiliate links, I just love the book. Also, I have it on pretty good authority that Theodora Taylor is going to be a speaker at InksCon, so, if you haven’t signed up, now is a great time to do that.
