The Journal: A “Fresh New Voice” Revisited

In today’s Journal

* Happy Thanksgiving
* A “Fresh New Voice” Revisited
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

Happy Thanksgiving

I’m posting today mostly so I can wish you an enjoyable Thanksgiving tomorrow. I hope it’s a good one for you and that you get to share it with friends and family.

A “Fresh New Voice” Revisited

Not quite a week ago, I posted a topic titled “Agents Want a Fresh New Voice.”

Yesterday, I received an email on the topic from another prolific fiction writer, Dawn T. Her anecdote added so much to my original post that I wanted to share it with you, with her permission, of course. Here’s Dawn:

“A close friend was seeking acceptance by the trad pubs a few years back, and every bit of the feedback she received was about how she NEEDED to sound like everyone else. She even had to provide comparables—tell them what other authors her style and story matched.

“They were especially pushing for her to write like their A-list authors, following THEIR style and voice. She kept getting rejected because she didn’t ‘sound’ like them. Meanwhile, she was told they were seeking authors with a “fresh voice”. Repeatedly!

“How in the world can an author be a ‘fresh voice'” if they’re expected to write like everyone else? I finally convinced her to go indie, but man, it took some doing! She’s really glad now that she did.”

Thanks for the validation, my friend.

Folks, we can’t “think” our way to originality. If we can consciously think up a plot twist, so can the reader. When you’re reading along in a story or novel and realize you know what’s going to happen next (and then it does), how boring is that?

The only path to a unique, original voice is to trust your creative subconscious and not allow your (or anyone else’s) conscious, critical mind to second-guess it.

Then you need only follow Heinlein’s Rules: write, publish, and write the next thing. Your stories, and your voice, will find readers.

Talk with you again later.

Of Interest

See “How authors are finding success on Kindle Vella” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/how-authors-are-finding-success-on-kindle-vella/.

See “A Very Happy Thanksgiving” at https://killzoneblog.com/2021/11/a-very-happy-thanksgiving.html. Not about writing but some turkey-cooking tips you might find useful.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………………… 370 words

Writing of WCGN 5: Carmelita Ramos (novel)

Day 1…… XXXX words. Total words to date…… XXXXX

Total fiction words for November……… XXXX
Total fiction words for the year………… 623282
Total nonfiction words for November… 100800
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 188570
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 811852

Calendar Year 2021 Novels to Date…………………… 13
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… 1
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… 3
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 66
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 217
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31

Disclaimer: In this blog, I provide advice on writing fiction. I advocate a technique called Writing Into the Dark. To be crystal clear, WITD is not “the only way” to write, nor will I ever say it is. However, as I am the only writer who advocates WITD both publicly and regularly, I will continue to do so, among myriad other topics.

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