It’s only because I’m a holistic doctor I believe I could better explain what to expect to an aspiring writer than how it was explained to me when I attended my first Writer’s Conference.
Sixteen, a classmate and fellow aspiring writer gave me The Writer’s Market for Chrismas and took me to my first Writer’s Conference at Oakland University. Thank you, Eric H (Hoho).
Though my intention had been to be a novelist life intervened and I started out with nonfiction.
Beginning in 2011 I released works, interspersing fiction and nonfiction.
I didn’t have any trouble bouncing between the two genres. My problem circled back to one I’d been facing from the time I was 13 and wrote my first novel.
In a spiral notebook in blue ink.
The dilemma
If I wrote for an audience – to sell – I would be compromising my voice.
How did I get to this awful fork in the road? Research.
Personal Research
Though I enjoyed reading fiction there was a single genre that put me off even as the stories and characters were fun if not cool.
Especially historical.
Fluff
From the first time someone put a romance novel in my hands …
I was 12 living with my mom and brother in a basement because my parents split and we had no money.
This well-meaning soul thought I might enjoy a break from life
And a break from what I what I was reading at the time – Kane and Abel and other awesome works…
I don’t think this kind woman understood I WAS getting a break by reading this stuff.
And that I’d been reading college level since I was 6.
While I enjoyed the story plots of the romance novels she gave me it was the characters I had issues with.
Like the stupid bodice ripping covers of the era, the characters were cardboard cutouts of reality.
A Turning Point
I remember how this lovely woman reacted when, after asking how I liked the stories, I responded
“When I become a writer I’m not going to write women as brainless twits.”
She laughed.
She also tried to explain the stuff I was reading was escapism.
Key Word: Tried.
I told her all fiction is escapism and I preferred stories that painted characters – especially women – more realistically.
The Cabinet
Instead of telling me I was too young to understand or trying to tell me why I was wrong
Or trying to dissuade me from my dreams of being a novelist
This woman took me to a room in her basement
Stage left: Irony
This lovely woman was a close family friend of the neighbor whose basement we were living in.
She opened a rather tall cabinet containing a lot of romance novels.
She suggested I might like what was in there.
In other words, keep reading – if not keep living and don’t give up on your dreams because your young life was yet again pushed off the rails.
I went through the entire cabinet in a period of 3 or so months (all the while living in that basement) and weirdly enough decided if this was what was published it must be what people wanted to read.
So Here We Are
“…in the backwater overflow…” – Catch and Release, Silversun Pickups
The genre has evolved but what never changed was my desire to balance what I want to give readers with my view of how characters – especially females – should be.
Strong, independependent and educated either by life or some formal way such as military or secondary/higher education.
As I’m working through my Dragon Core project I’m reminded of this battle of wills.
A battle I can finally – having come into myself as a writer – address.
To my satisfaction. As a writer.
Stay tuned














