Growing Pains

What does that mean, especially for writers?

Growing pains mean change, a caterpillar growing wings, a child riding his first two-wheeler, flowers coming up in Spring, a country starting to choose a president.

I'm published with a new publishing company, which means growing pains as they find the right outlets to sell books, the marketing plan that will promote the company the best, the top management that will represent the writers the most effectively and a stable of writers who will be just as dedicated to promoting the company. It's worth the pain because the company has made such strides in the less than six months of their existance.

For a writer, its the constant growing we do as we write, rewrite, finish a second book, a third and learn our craft. If we stop learning, if we ever make the mistake of thinking we know everything, we're dead, because this business changes on a day-to-day basis. We have to stick to what we do best, what we enjoy writing and then make it so good we can sell it and find a market that works for it. We have to write what we love, if we try to write for a market because it's popular and not because we love it, the readers can tell.

When we do stop to read, reading in our own genre isn't a bad idea but also, we should read those who write other things and broaden our thinking, add dimension to our own writing. And if you're lucky, you'll find a writer who can get past the thing that you are a writer and will pay attention to technique and suck you into the story in spite of yourself.