The Myth of the One True Way (And State Your Goals)

We writers are adventurers.  I don’t mean just our tendency to spend vast quantities of time in other worlds, but I mean our Indiana Jones-like pursuit of the Holy Grail.  We read books and blogs and listen to podcasts and test out this method or that method, all in search of The One True Way to Write A Book.

I’m here to tell you a secret.

There is no one true way.

There’s not.  What works for one person may or may not work for you.  Like, say, writing 50,000 words in a month.  :whistles innocently:  That’s why I started this writing challenge.  You absolutely cannot feel like a failure if one method doesn’t click for you!  The important thing is to keep trying things and take away the pieces of methods that work for you.  Eventually you’ll cobble together a system for you.

But there’s a cautionary tale there, too.

There’s no one true way for each person from book to book!

That’s been a hard won lesson for me, too.  Once I settled on a method that worked on one book, I was convinced it would work for everything after.  Um, yeah.  No.  Every book, every story, every set of characters is different, the same way that every person is different.

Even when you find a system, it can be a great thing to change things up once in a while.  If you tend to be a rabid plotter (I am), it can sometimes be good to pants a little.  If you usually write long, try short.  If you normally write in the morning, try an evening session.  Shake it up.  You never know what you’ll get out of it.

So that’s my challenge for you this round.  Try something NEW and SHAKING THINGS UP!

Without further ado, STATE YOUR GOALS!

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