Write What You Love

This is a special Valentine’s Day-themed guest post from G.G. Andrew.

I have a love story to tell. It’s a simple one, but it may shock you. It involves cheating.

Last fall I’d finished a revision of my first novel, and newly bitten by the fiction bug, I knew I wanted to write another book.  Pretty soon an idea came to me. A Very Good Idea. An idea I could spend some time with, a notion I could talk about, something I could take home to mom and dad. I started outlining major plot points and began drafting it. And it was going well. This Very Good Idea and I, we were getting along fine.

But then something happened. I read a short article that sparked something in me, something I didn’t realize at first. I was still plugging away at my Very Good Idea, but not every day, not as much as I should have been. But as I lay in bed in the dark of night, I would think about this article and the premise of a romance story that was growing from it, digging its roots deep within me.

I started daydreaming about it in the morning too, and then the afternoon. And here is the shameful thing: I started writing these new ideas down. At first it was just the kiss of a few words on the page, nothing I couldn’t delete and forget about. But then my fingers started sliding over the keys, faster and faster till I couldn’t stop.

There’s only one word for what I was doing: I was cheating. I’m woman enough to admit it now. I set aside my Very Good Idea and followed my bliss into this Awesome Story Idea. I do not regret it, because when I gave up the reluctance and guilt and started typing, the story poured out of me so quickly I couldn’t keep up. It felt like I was gushing dialogue and chases and fights and kisses. I typed up notes in emails on my iPad Mini in little moments throughout the day and stopped watching television at night to write. I couldn’t stop thinking about the story, the characters, the romance and sexual tension and comedic possibilities. I wanted to jump into bed with this Awesome Story Idea and call in sick to work for the next four days. You know what I’m talking about.

I can already feel some of you shaking your heads. Writing is work, you say. Sometimes you don’t love an idea, either at the beginning or in that tricky middle, and you need to write it anyway because it’s important. I hate writing, I love having written, you say, quoting Dorothy Parker. All I need are a few apps and aggressively encouraging friends and maybe a month dedicated to writing at the expense of sleep.

These are all true statements, but they are posts for another time. This Valentine’s Day let’s focus on love: finding or rediscovering what it feels like to write something you truly love. When did you last write something you felt passionate about, something that felt like play, something you couldn’t wait to write about at the end of a long day and at the expense of watching another episode of Scandal?

It’s so essential to write what we love, because often that’s the motivator that will actually cause us make time to write, quickly and fully. I also can’t help but believe that that enthusiasm shows up on the page.

Where do you find that passion? Think about that TV show you love, the one you save as your special treat after the kids are in bed. Why not try some fan fiction and see where it takes you? What about that man down the street with the hobby that fascinates you? Ask to interview him and write up his story. Write a bit of something you love. Five minutes a day. Ten. A Saturday afternoon when no one’s looking. I won’t tell. You’ll know it’s right when it makes you feel indulged and maybe even a bit guilty, like you’re eating a whole plate of brownies.

My Very Good Idea still sits in my Dropbox. Maybe it feels bitter, like it will never trust another writer again. Maybe one day I’ll return to it, and a new twist on the story will make it feel like an Awesome Story Idea. Now I know what that feels like. Sometimes you have to discover an idea you truly love to realize when you just have a pretty good idea, but not one you can stay with for the months or years of writing and revising and polishing and publishing.

That thing you think about before you fall asleep at night? There. That. Write about that.

G.G. Andrew’s first romantic comedy, Screwing Mr. Melty, will be published in May. An obsessive reader, compulsive writer, and disordered housekeeper, G.G. can be found online at ggandrew.com or on Twitter at @writerggandrew.

Image by Leland Francisco and licensed through Creative Commons