Do You Understand WHY You Write?
Rolling over in the middle of the night from another restless sleep, I grab my smartphone and start going through my twitter account, which has become horribly addictive. This is about the only time I can actually look at other people’s twits. So I click on links for books and posts and retweet what I think is appropriate. Keeping my eye on the time on my phone, telling myself I need to go back to sleep, I run across a twit entitled: Why I Suck at Book Marketing (& WHY You Do Too) by Shah Wharton. She had recently seen a post called I Hate Self-Promotion by Tim Grahl at Out:Think.
Basically the premise is that you can holler until you’re blue in the face through your Author Platform, but until you understand WHY you are writing, what theme is behind your books, you will never reach the readers you are looking for. Shah went through her books and made a list of her reoccurring themes so she could understand WHY she was writing and what she was trying to tell her readers.
Hmm. As you know, I’m publishing my late husband’s books. So as for the WHY he needed to express, I can’t ask him. But being a reader and having gone through the birthing process with each of his stories and characters, I gave it a stab in the dark.
Nightmare Storm: This is a man who one fateful night, has his girlfriend taken by a four-foot Teddy Bear into a large ball of light. The other Teddy Bears could have picked anyone on the block, but it was his girlfriend they wanted. He then has to live through the fear and helplessness of the consequences.
In Memory of Michelle: A man is fishing along the Missouri River and one fateful day, he encounters an aquatic humanoid creature he calls Michelle. Due to an accident beyond his control, he fells hopeless at his inability to help her and comes back year after year to find her.
Keeper of the Unicorns: Unknown to Michael, he has a destiny to the Keeper of the Unicorns, Grizelda. He pays the price when he chooses to ignore his destiny.
It Lives In The Basement: This is about two Detectives, who were partners, but at different times were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They are both faced with the same creature and fighting for survival. Again, Fate.
The Secret of Excalibur: Arthur is a man, who due to an accident suddenly has various psychic abilities. And as the story progress’, he discovers that it was his destiny.
There are several other stories that I have started but quit, for now, with the same reoccurring themes. Fate and Destiny.
