J.M. NORTHUP's BLOG

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

It's Personal

They Say To Write What You Know

To be a good writer, you need to create from your heart.  You need to look inside yourself and draw from your hopes, aspirations, dreams, fears, nightmares, and failures.  You need to be a part of the soul of the book you write and be willing to be vulnerable to your audience.  If your story isn't important or personal to you then it'll never be good enough for your readers.  You need to smudge the ink with your tears and bleed your essence into your art.
Your writing should be intimate to the point that you are almost embarrassed to share it.  Your words should have a truth that exposes you; making you feel naked to your readers.  Your work should be crafted with so much love that it's like your baby - you just want to nurture, develop, and protect it.
Your desire to see your story succeed should excite you and encourage you.  It should drive you to produce the best product you can.  Your fear of seeing your story fail should be almost painful because it is your soul laid out in the pages of your book.
Your words should be a part of you.  A piece of you lies in every character no matter how different they are from your overall person.  Everything they are is something you have envisioned.
Though they are completely separate and individually unique, they should still be an extension of something inside you.  They should be expressions of your fears, regrets, mistakes, hurts, pleasures, hopes or dreams.  It should be hard to completely separate yourself at times because you should know your characters that well.
Though words are just words, the ideas, the emotions, and the overall picture is the writer's creation.  It is art from the soul. 
You should write what you know based on the feelings you have experienced; real or unreal.
Real from your actual experiences and observations.
Unreal because you can always build a whole world using your imagination and experience or observe through this mindfully fabricated universe.
The life in your books comes from your own!

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