A kick in the butt lesson about writing
What the le feck? Stupidest top story ever but it taught me something.
Happy Friday,
King Henry VIII had a bum-wiper. And if you're wondering what the heck that has to do with a somewhat strange photo of an elk, hang with me because we're going on a bit of a ride.
That’s how I started a story entry on Vocal earlier this week.
I was entering a handful of photos in their animal photo/story challenge. I shared the mountain lion and wolf pics (and stories) with you last Friday.
Scrolling through my photos, I kept seeing this stupid picture of an elk losing his damn mind over an itch.
So I wrote a ridiculous story to go with it and hit enter.
I didn’t even edit it. Really, it was just a stupid picture and an equally ridiculous story to go with it. It squeezed in at around the minimum of 600 words.
Really, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they didn’t accept it.
That’s how stupid I thought it was. lol. But I wanted to share the dumb picture because it made me laugh every time I saw it. And I needed words to go with it.
Then it won story of the day and got a boatload of views.
What the le feck?
Taste is subjective, right?
I say that all the time. We all do. But you know how we say that, right? We say it to console each other when a piece of writing isn’t well received. We acknowledge that taste is subjective and then keep on writing the same stuff. lol.
That stupid story winning being a top pick?
That was a kick in the butt lesson about writing
And taste.
Clearly what I thought was kind of dumb, the editors thought was great.
It made me think about how we pigeon-hole ourselves. A professional chef doesn’t just make one kind of dish over and over, do they? A fashion designer doesn’t design the same kind of garment over and over, do they? Nope.
So why do we writers do that?
We find a rut we’re comfortable in and say it’s our ‘style’ — and if it’s not well received, we console ourselves by reminding ourselves that taste is subjective.
Know what the funny thing is?
I think it’s easy to confuse topic, style and voice. Because that dumb piece that won story of the day is not the style of writing I normally do. And I don’t write humor, so the topic wasn’t exactly my wheelhouse either.
But it’s still my voice.
Writing people like to talk about voice a lot.
Especially, they like to talk about finding your voice. Thing is, you don’t need to find it. It’s just there, like your fingerprints. You can make it stronger. But you can’t “not” have one. Your “voice” is part of you.
So now I’m curious to dabble with other topics and styles. I might bomb a lot. But I might not, too. I might find some areas that work really well for me.
Maybe we writers could stand to be a little more adventurous?
:)
New posts — have you read these yet?
Thought for the day…
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
~Leo Tolstoy
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Have a great weekend…
xo,
Linda
In what I call 'poetland' on Medium - we challenge one another with prompts. For instance, I wrote a limerick a few days ago. SO not me but hey, I was tagged. Not backing down - and it was fun! Here's to "what the le feck?"!!!!!
We can write about SEO or a sausage fest and our voice is still gonna be there.
I've had similar thoughts ever since a silly Medium story on how the hell I ended up with small dogs became my most consistent performer. Best? No, but it's a trickler.