A Novel Idea

I've been struggling with the Shomi project from the beginning. I dumped my first idea, characters and all, replacing it with a dream I had. And I'm still not happy with it. I finally decided last night to stop stressing over it and just read something--no fiction writing at all.

I settled on The Good Guy by Dean Koontz, mainly because I couldn't stand the idea of a story I'd already read and this had been sitting in an unopened box since it had been, all unwanted, delivered six months or so ago.

Donno why Koontz triggered it, but I found myself thinking about the advice newbie writers get. Way beyond "write what you know" there is "write what you love." Well, duh. I don't love Becoming. I'm writing it out of desperation to get a story out there.

The second thing that's come up from the Koontz reading is a desire to get back to my own story. Unfortunately, that desire is for Quinn's Tale, not Becoming.

On the one hand, that seems to be all I need to know and I should stop trying to force this story. On the other hand, writing what I love will either have to eventually come up against the reality of writing for a living...unless I want to give up on that.

Hmphf.