To Find Your Voice Ignore the Rules

I’ve known I wanted to be a writer since I was 3.  What I didn’t know was the convoluted path it would take.  Even as I was praised as a storyteller, winning fiction writing awards beginning at 6 of years age, I was getting pushback, the harshest coming from a woman of influence – my paternal grandmother.

I now understand she was putting the burden of her need to live in reflected glory/accomplishment on my young shoulders.

My education drove very strict grammatical rules into my head.

Most of which didn’t and still doesn’t apply to published works.

I excelled.

Was reading college level at age 7 – tested 99th percentile in the country – qualified for the new Mensa for children program.

All of which did little to help with my dream of becoming a published storyteller.

Arbitrare This!

Oh – is arbitrare a word?

Fast Forward through a successful multi-decade career in tech to 2003.

Enter Fate!

A merger from hell led me to know that if it was ever going to be –

The Time to Write is Now!

I’d wanted this for as long as I could remember and yes – I remember being 3 and giving my mom a poem I’d written [to her] in gold crayon on a red construction paper heart I cut myself and declaring I was going to be a writer.

Yeah but

Back to 2003

Even as I was working to publish Kerry’s Game – I was working on a doctoral thesis in holstic medicine.

Another passion.

This necessitated I not only spend hours in the scary basement of the science library at Stanford

Hey – it’s dark and creepy in that corner!

It required I purchase a book on the accepted writing style and grammer for a doctoral thesis.

My Masters’ thesis didn’t require this.

Detour Ahead!

My literary plans were derailed by Fate when an adjunct professor who read my thesis encouraged me to turn it into a book.

Which I did.

And detoured further via EMF Sensitivity which led me to publish nonfiction first.

I had multiple individuals begging me to give them unfinished work which I refused to do – on ethical grounds among other reasons; as in it wasn’t finished.

Skipping around a bit – including the impact of Smashwords on the industry …

Once I  published and subsequently dealt with the fallout of that lifetime achievement award I returned to my original dream.

Published storyteller.

I invested in my dream.

Time and money.  LOTS of money

Classes and conferences and more time.  

I ran into rather interesting challenges.

No one told me not to quit my dayjob. Quite the opposite.

I received a hand-written letter from an editor at Tor-Forge explaining their slots for a particular paranormal fiction angle were currently filled and inviting me to submit more of my work for consideration.  

Aspiring published writer gold.

Fate intervened

Beyond the scope of this article.  

Then intervened again.

Cue Mark Coker founder of Smashwords.

The man who upended the industry I was just breaking into had watched his wife suffer the hoops of fire aspiring novelists are put through and decided to do something about it.

For details visit his site.

By the time I was listening to him speak at a conference in Anaheim I was self-pubished and on my way to a flourishing writing career.

My dream.

I didn’t feel an imposter.  That didn’t mean I wasn’t ill at ease. 

I was writing by someone else’s rules and the vernacular that went with those rules. I hadn’t found my voice.

Full Circle

It was while reading one of my favorite books [I’d written] that it came to me. I’d written my stories as if I was working for the Big 5 when I wasn’t!

Their rules. Their voice.

Smiling from the Aha! moment I began editing with the warm feeling of someone who has found their voice!

I can finally write as me as opposed to a representative of a corporate standards list.

Stay tuned!