Only You

So much to post, where do I begin. Oh yeah. At the MOST important thing. THE GIANTS WON IN OVERTIME!!!!! All is right with my world today. As an aside, I think it's fairly telling that even though they usually break my heart, I have remained loyal to my Men in Blue all these many years. My heart is bursting today. And in honor of it, Baby Girl and I are going to get our nails done today . . . and she will have the wonderful salon owner, who thinks she's cute as a button, paint her nails blue and white. I will try to post a picture tomorrow. If you think I am shutting up about the Giants until Superbowl . . . well, gang, you just don't know me. I've got two glorious weeks of unadulterated joy to bask in.

Two . . . for those writers participating . . . don't forget to get your butt over to Mary's blog today. Even if you're not participating, you can send us gluttons for punishment a word of encouragement or two. And email her tonight with your page or word count. I have a dinner party tonight, so it's entirely possible my count will be pitiful for the day. We'll see.

Three, a quote about writing from Elie Wiesel:

Write only if you cannot live without writing. Write only what you alone can write.

In March I am giving a presentation on writing for the young adult genre at a conference. And while I happily agreed to do it . . . (and if anyone feels like driving to the Richmond, Virginia area to attend, give a yell) . . . when I start putting my presentation folders together, I am often struck by how inadequate it is to try to explain to people how to write what sells, how to write for a certain genre, etc. Because even though I have a command of the mechanics of it all, even though I have worked as an editor for years, as a writer for years, I am ever aware that the real magic happens when writing calls to you. And the thing that will elevate your writing is that story that ONLY YOU can write. It will never be about seeing what's hot in the marketplace and then writing that story. It will always be about writing YOUR story, informed by your life and experiences and passions and interests.

I once mentored a writer who wrote a phenomenal book about a detective, but we all know that's tough to sell. I believed in him, this writer, but I also knew the detective hadn't quite gelled. I couldn't really come up with anything that I, as reader, could say to someone if I was to describe the detective other than "family man, really smart." And THAT isn't going to sell. The plot was great . . . and I genuinely liked the detective, but there was a "so what" editorially.

So the writer started adding quirks. He toyed with the detective being a gambling addict. A recovering alcoholic. X or y. And in the end, I didn't think it much mattered because the writer was tacking traits on instead of somehow digging really, really deep and finding something that ONLY he could write.

When you start tweaking tics . . . start tweaking nuance, I usually feel you are dooming a book. The specialness has to come blazing out of the gate with a roar. The story only you can tell. I can't teach that.

Thoughts? Do you write from that place? The story only you can tell?