I'm sure there are a few roads that don't lead to Rome, but there is some truth to that especially when it comes to publishing. I've been seeing a lot of the faerie tale type stories bouncing around the internet, and I wanted to offset those with another type of story, my story.
For me, life has never quite panned out with the faerie tale moment where it was clear the Faerie Godmother had been through and made all of my dreams come true. I suspect that's because making all the dreams come true was never the real purpose of a Faerie Godmother, but more on that some other time. In my life, my experiences are always filled with how the world said "nope" and I said, "No really, I'm doing this until it kills me." It's possible I have a stubborn streak.
So there I was in late 2010 having just finished querying a book that... let's not talk about that. I didn't query my first novel. I queried my third. It wasn't pretty. And because we all do those things you really shouldn't, well, I wrote sequel number one and two to that first sacrifice to the Query Trenches.
I learned a lot, which was good because if there was a rookie move, I made it. I loved my first query bait. LOVED. I dreamt in that world for the longest time. Heart still a bit achy (okay, I cried, a lot) from all the pain of not being instantly AMAZING, I went back to the drawing board. I wasn't sure I had another book in me, and at the time, I maybe listened to a ton of Dan and Leland (check out their stuff here, here, and especially this one).
Humbled from a cold dose of reality, I decided I would need practice picking myself up out of the darkness I created with my own impossible expectation. So I decided I should practice building a novel from scratch. Up until that point, my novels had all come on the fully formed wings of, well, faeries for all I knew, and by golly, it was time to figure out where novels really came from. I started with an idea and carefully cultivated it until it grew up to be the special little snowflake--NOPE!
I don't like to do things the easy way, but more on that next time.
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| Yes, I'm putting this cover on everything I can. |
I've had a few of those story ideas--the ones you don't dream but construct. They usually become epic.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea where anything I write comes from - the actual stories, not just the inspiration that sparks them. But I am glad that, over the years, I've learned that they only ever become anything worth reading through lots and lots of work. Things are a little bit easier when I don't expect everything to automatically be awesome. >_<
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