G’day.
I hope everyone had a safe and Happy Christmas and New Year. New year, new(?) goals. I’ve pretty much given up on one of mine – to lose the 10 pounds that has snuck on since I had a stroke. Oh, all right – more like 15. But it is almost impossible to shift I am finding, since all my joints seemed to have decided to fuse since that time and the ones that do work do not work the same way. Stephen King talked about his way of walking changing since his accident – I can relate well.
But this is not about me. I am mobile now and I can work around all the problems – eventually. All this does is pander to my innate laziness. I LOVE having reasons not to do something that I know I should.
How about you?
One of the things I am intending to do this year is to find who my readers are. I know I cannot appeal to everyone. That has been a long time finding. But now to find the ones who do enjoy my writing. So how do I plan to do that? At this point in time I have no idea. But I do have some ideas on what I should do.
One of these is to decide who. I do not write steamy sexy books for example. My first(and only!) attempt at that made me laugh my head off – not exactly the plan for it. That book went into the darkest drawer I could find and is not going to ever see daylight again if I can help it.
I like writing for children and I like cosy mysteries, with a little bit of violence thrown in. After all, I know some little old ladies who are perfectly capable of putting someone in hospital with a whack or a walking stick. Kids can be a bit more tricky, but wizards and other-world things still seem to attract them in general.
Or perhaps it is just what is needed or appeals at the time. To both groups.
Have any of you finally found your readers? Great if you have. That is a terrific starting point. After all, you can direct your writing efforts towards them without worrying if they will like them. But never get complacent about it. Readers are precious and will leave you in droves if they think you are not giving your best every time, even the more forgiving ones. Unfortunately I have found this with some writers I love – the aforementioned Stephen King being one. I lost interest in him for a long time when he started writing what seemed absolute cr*p to me. No doubt others loved it, but I just didn’t like the change. That didn’t mean to say I didn’t buy each of these weird books, if only to see whether he had come to his senses again!
One of my mentors has always told me to write what I like to read. Now, while I think that is very good advice, if you don’t really think you can write that stuff, don’t be afraid to try something else. Like my experiment with erotic writing ( I don’t like reading that stuff by the way, but all the best to those who do!) it is worth at least trying something out of your comfort zone out, just to push yourself.
There are so many categories on Amazon and other platforms now, you should be able to find something that appeals. So go search for one, and have fun trying to write what genre it is. Just don’t spend too much time if you think it is not a good fit for you.
Keep trying. It works!