​Well, hello readers. I hope you are having a wonderful day today, I know I am. We are going to sit back and have a fun relaxing talk about your writing. That’s right, your writing, not mine. Now I should have mentioned that when you read that I would like you to read it with your best Bob Ross voice, it makes the writing that much more epic.
For those of you who don’t know, I am in my senior year of college for my BA in Creative Writing with a concentration in Fiction and a double minor in English Literature and Professional Writing.  I am getting my education on and the getting is good. In the last few years, I have gotten a chance to meet a few writers that were in the same genre as myself and we have gotten to talk and even work together on a few projects. This has given me a chance to have an outsider’s look at a writer in their natural habitat. Here is what I have learned.
1.    Don’t be so focused on your work that you can’t see past it. You need to be able to take a step back and see it for what it is. I met a writer that wanted to work with me on a project he had. I was all for it, I love writing until he told me the idea. The idea was for a group of mystery-solving teens who get locked in an abandoned mansion that they think is haunted and have to figure out if it really is haunted and find a way out. When I saw the pitch I jokingly asked if the teens could have a dog with them and he said that was a great idea. See where I am going with this?
2.    There is a fine line between giving what the readers want (selling out) and doing whatever it is you want (screw the readers, what do they know about writing?). It’s at the fine line that you want to live. You want your readers to enjoy your writing and inevitably buy your work and tell others about it. You also want to keep the integrity of your work in tacked so as not to write the next Twilight. When readers give you feedback listen to them, hear what they have to say and if you hear it a lot and from many different sources then maybe take it to heart. Some of the writers I met were so closed off to ideas and critique that the stories had obvious flaws that could have been fixed.
3.    The final point, and might I add that all these are for myself as well, is have faith in your work and in your craft. Don’t be afraid to stand by it. I recently gave a copy of my books to a friend and I was nervous for him to read them when he told me the caliber of reading he did. He named off some greats and I threw my book in there. I spent the next 24 hours nervously awaiting his text that would tell me how horrible my writing was. Instead, he fell in love with the series and read straight few the first few chapters. If you are a writer and you put your heart and soul into your work, stand behind it.

Getting one’s life back in order is hard work and to be honest mine is far from in order. I am however able to take a break from the chaos and do a little work which feels great. Really great. I actually was forced to take yet another break from reading and writing sadly. This force was brought on by life. I already have a post about how life can sometimes suck, this is not one of those times, but man did it get close.
Enough about the dark times let us move on to the good times happening now and about to happen. School is going well but we are nearing the end of the journey, or at least the BA portion on the journey. Book three, The Dream of Shadows is coming to an end as well.
Whenever a book or novel comes to an end it is both an amazing feeling and a horrible feeling. It’s great to have worked on something for so long, dedicating so much thought and effort and frustration and joy into it. You love and hate the thing at times and you become invested in it. I hope that when it comes out it will be as well received as the others have been and I hope everyone enjoys it.
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