You don't have to take it literally, though I have the past three mornings. I've set my alarm, got up and planted myself in my office chair for three hours in order to get the day's wordcount in before I work on editing.
If you don't take BICFOK literally, it stands for doing the work. To have a writing career, you have to do the work. You have to learn your craft, and you have to write an entertaining tale. All the fabulous covers, witty blurbs, and marketing money in the world only gets your reader's foot in the door. To keep them there, you've got to write a damn good story.
I see too many new writers burning themselves out gaming the system. Oh, they don't think they are gaming. They aren't bookstuffing or clickfarming or any other weird shenanigans that are designed to rip off the money-paying public.
No, they write stuff only for the money. Following trends. Writing books that they hate in genres they don't respect. And they wonder why they aren't making any money beyond their obscene ad spend.
It's because a good story is about more than the tropes and formulas. It's about the way your characters make the reader feel.
And I honestly believe if you're not feeling the feels when you're writing that story, your audience won't either.
I say this because I finished the first round of edits on Sacrificed late Sunday night. And I was sobbing as I saved my files.
DH had already gone to bed, but I was still sniffling when I climbed under the covers. He asked me what was wrong, and I told him. He didn't belittle me for identifying so closely with my characters. He simply held me until we both fell asleep.
And since he's my alpha reader, I'll probably have to hold him tonight when he finishes reading the book.
Isn't that what you want from your audience?
To laugh along with your heroes, cheer for them, and when shit happens, cry with them?
All the money for covers and ads in the world can't buy those feelings. You have to earn them
By placing your butt in that chair, your fingers on your keyboard, learning your craft, and writing a damn good story.
I heard that first from Misty Lackey, back in the 80s. Her contemp/urban fantasy character Diana Tregarde (great books if you can find them) runs around using magic to save the world, but it doesn't pay so she's a writer. In one book, she's staying with a friend, doing weekly gigs at his son's high school, doing a writing unit in his English class, and she tells the kids you have to put your butt in the chair and your hands on the keyboard and do the damn work.
ReplyDeleteI read that for the first time when I was in my 20s, and although I often can't live up to it [cough] I'm always aware that I should. :)
It's frustrating when people don't get that the writing should come first. It's so obvious. Like, if you want to open a store and sell stuff, you have to acquire the stuff to sell ojn a regular basis or you don't have a business, no matter how much you spent on your decor or your sign or your weekly ads. :/
Angie
Does Misty write anything OTHER than great books? *smile*
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the saying is probably older than our twenties which was *cough, cough* years ago anyway.
I mention RWA which is where I first heard it because I saw someone bitching about how can possibly she compete with Nora Roberts. Nora had HUNDREDS of books out. Well, that's because La Nora gets up, grabs her coffee, sits her ass down, and starts typing. Do that for forty years, and you'll have hundreds of books, too!
Ironically, La Nora started on a snow day, just like today. LOL
Oh, good grief. Who ever said she had to "compete" with La Nora anyway? It's not like her fans who are actually romance readers (as opposed to people who pick up a bestseller at the airport twice a year) only read one writer's books. I really wonder about some people....
DeleteAngie
Because some idiots look at our industry as a zero-sum game. Which is why they are idiots. And why they'll freak themselves out so bad they'll end up quitting. *smh*
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