DTP Blog 24, I suck at updates!

Hey everyone! I really do suck at this whole blog thing. But I wanted to give everyone an update on upcoming projects. After lots of time and work, I have decided the current book I am working on will be the end of Danni’s story. While the book isn’t from her perspective, it wraps up the story as a whole from new characters’ perspectives. It will answer a lot of questions on the how and why behind the events in book 5. I look forward to all of you reading it!

So, I did a thing. I recently wrote an article for a local publication that was fun to write. It is always fun to just let your thoughts flow freely and try to encourage more writers. If you have always wanted to write or publish your work and are stuck with all the overwhelming advice out there I encourage you to read my article. Writting and publishing have a tremendous learning curve and I hope sharing my struggles might help you along the way. I also encourage you to reach out to me if you have questions or just need a little guidance. Can’t say I am an expert but I want you to succeed with your writing! We need more writers in the world or we are going to run out of new things to read! Below is my article in Nspire. I hope it gives you a little nudge to keep going with your work. Happy writing!

Creative Writing.

What is creative writing? Well, according to google, it is writing, typically fiction or poetry, which displays imagination or invention (often contrasted with academic or journalistic writing). Sounds accurate but slightly skewed in my opinion. Let me back up and give you a little backstory on me, a creative writer I proudly get to label myself.

My name is Tanya and I am a typical hard-working mom with a full-time job that I actually enjoy most days. In my spare time, I focus a lot of time on creative writing and creating a world from my own imagination. Currently, I have five published books in the ‘Danni to Pieces’ series that I am proud of. What led to writing them you ask? Good question and I love to answer it. That question is so much easier to answer than “what are your books about?”

What led to it? One word, predictable. I have always been a reader and television watcher but it became very frustrating. So many books and shows are predictable which doesn’t help my creative brain become excited. So one night I decided I had enough and was going to create my own little world. What a world it became. But it was my world and I could retreat from the craziness of the real world. I didn’t plan an outline or a plot or even a character list. The toughest part was just sitting down and starting with absolutely no direction or experience. But I did it! Before I knew it, I had a bigger problem and that was it took over my life and occupied my brain. Even when I would finally get some sleep I would dream about it and be excited to get the next chapter down. The problem was before I knew it, I had twenty-five hundred pages in a word document. The first lesson I learned, as writers we don’t call them pages. Word count is more important. But I was new and started in the basement of the writing world and I thank God every day I did. All the knowledge I have gained is priceless to me. It made me better at grammar, speaking, thinking, understanding, and patience. It is a very slow process but completely worth it. I can’t count how many people tell me all the time when they learn I am an author that they “have always wanted to write a book.” I tell them, DO IT! When I started my journey I simply wrote it for myself with never even a thought anybody would ever read any of it. It was just fun to do. So sit down and write your book and focus on your story with no thought to anybody ever reading it. Even now with five books out there, I don’t focus on what others think because I wrote the story I wanted to. Not what others find acceptable or appropriate. Believe it or not, the world is neither of those things so don’t let anyone tell you what to write about it. I self-published so I maintained complete creative control over my books. Big publishing houses focus on what sells and that is the problem and why we have one story wrote ten different ways. Write your story for you and who cares what people think. It’s great if they do like it but there will always be a critique out there telling you what you should or shouldn’t have done. There are plenty of books out there I didn’t like but I still respect the fact the author sat down and wrote and published something. It takes courage and a whole lot of not caring what others think. With that in mind, early on in my journey, I made the mistake of going to a meet-up with other authors. Big mistake! We each had to bring ten pages of our writing to read and discuss as a group. As a writer, I am not about to tear down another writer. But this group focused a little too heavy on criticism and I left feeling like I had no right to even entertain the idea of being a writer. So I removed their negativity from my mind and did what I wanted to do. Even online groups focus on the “proper writing technique” and they are completely wrong. There is no right or wrong way to write. Write for yourself and do it your way. I believe listening to all these people takes us down the path of predictable and repetitive entertainment. Our writing should be shocking and unpredictable because we all think differently. Believe me when I say all of us take something completely different from every situation. I am a twin and my whole life people assumed my sister and I think alike, act alike, like the same things, and it couldn’t be more wrong. Two different people that happen to look alike and sound the same. Past that we have little in common and while still close we see the world completely different. She hasn’t even read my books and I get why so I can’t be mad about it. We know each other so well she can predict what I am usually thinking or what I am going to do so my books probably wouldn’t be much entertainment to her. I get that and usually quit reading or watching something if I can guess what is going to happen in the first ten minutes. That is why we need you to sit and write your story. I don’t know you so I can’t predict what is going on in your head. That is what we need more than these groups with similar interests. It takes a lot of courage for anybody to step outside their comfort zone but the reward is pretty awesome when you do. So write that book you have always wanted to. Like I mentioned above, I  never intended anybody to ever read my story but here I am years later dipping my toes into the film world. It scares the hell out of me but my comfort zone has become too comfortable with just writing so why not try the next thing. Writing is a process that should scare the hell out of you but when you do it for yourself it is insanely exciting. Happy dance exciting holding your first finished book in your hands. So sit down and start that story! Find the people to lean on that will support your crazy idea no matter how much it scares you. Don’t focus on grammar, outlining, or anybody telling you the proper way or content. Make it your story! Do it in a way that works for you. I simply started with a word document of twenty-five hundred pages and it felt like a huge puzzle I was never going to be able to solve. But I did because I did it my way. Happy writing!