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The Voices only Writers can hear….
Emily Allen w/a Betsy Fox
I
know what you are thinking… she hears voices, call the men in white coats and
drag her off to the crazy house. But wait is it really crazy for a writer to
hear voices? NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT!!
I
hear them when I sit down to write with my pad and pen, then again when I’m putting my words into my computer, but those voices
aren’t the helpful ones. No they’re the ones that tell me I’m wasting my time,
I’m never going to get published so why am I wasting my time? I simple tell
them to shut the hell up. I may never get published, but at least I’m doing
something I love.
Then
there’s the good voices that start
talking to me (many of you are familiar with those), the ones that tell me I’m
meant to finish my book and try to get that book in front of an agent who will
love my book or the publisher that will grab at the chance to publish it.
Then
there are the voices that keep you up all night filling your head with new
ideas (no wonder I need lots of coffee in the morning). But the one set of
voices that we as writers really should listen to are the voices of our
characters. You know who I mean,
the ones that just won’t leave you alone.
They
are the ones that point out you
need to do this or not do that or this will work, but that’s not going to work.
Then they tell you I want to be with this hero, not that jerk you have me with.
So which voice should you listen to? I for one listen to the
voices that push me to finish the book I’m working on. I also listen to the
voices that throw me ideas as I finish one book or while I’m in the middle of
writing a book. But the voices that seem to push me the most, is my characters.
So the question is, which voices do you listen to?
