Elana Johnson had an awesome blog post yesterday about "staying cool," and what that actually means. Like most of the people who commented, I think it's a mixture of staying true to yourself, staying in touch with what is real (as opposed to what is perceived), allowing yourself to change and grow as a person, staying humble, and living your life as you need to live it without worrying about what impression you're making.
And then I thought: what does that mean as I work on my manuscripts? I guess it means I should write the book that is burning to be written, and not worry about squishing it into a trend.
And then I thought: but what about all those agent blogs that talk about a book needing to be marketable before they can take it on? And I remembered all of the ideas I've had for books - pages and pages of ideas - that I've put on hold while I work on the one or two ideas that I think will be the most marketable. Suddenly I feel very un-cool.
And I wonder: how can I possibly stay true to myself while pursuing a career in this? Is that even something I can do? Is the only way to stay true to oneself and write marketable work to just have lucky timing?
What do you think?
No idea. I do think it's almost impossible to predict the trends, so I guess you just sort of have to write what you have to ... and then hope to set the trend.
ReplyDeleteHope - that can keep you moving forward through the wondering.
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