Julie Leto has a great post on her Marisela blog about the “rules” of writing.
This is a hot button for me because I myself have no education or courses geared toward writing. I took a correspondence course on how to SELL my writing, but it didn’t teach me anything about writing other than how to research markets and find places to sell what I wanted to write.
As far as writing itself…for me, it’s always been sit my ass in a chair and write. that’s all there is to it.
I have no rules. My main goal/rule for my own writing is get rid of what’s not needed. I absolutely hate it when I skim a story, so I try my hardest when writing to make sure there is nothing to skim in my own stories.
When I started writing, I didn’t know any writers. I wasn’t connnected to the internet in any way other than Hotmail, and now, I think that was a good thing. I’m lucky in the way that when I started writing I was published right away. Short stories. I didn’t know a thing about technique or GMC or conflict. I’d never even heard of those terms!
When I decided to try novel writing, and learned about eHar and RWA and such, I was lost for a while. I really was.
I was excited to find the eHar community, and through them I learned about RWA and contests. I tried a couple of contests (this is around the time I got my website started up) and I failed miserably in the contests. My submissions were ripped apart for not being realistic in my contemporaries, not having any conflict, and my writing itself. My grammar and my style.
But everything happens for a reason. I met some wonderfully supportive authors on eHar. My friends from the Struggling Writers, authors like Alison Kent who sent me one of her first Bravas to show me that things were heating up, Suzanne McMinn, who is strong and sage with her advice and affirmations, and Julie Leto who has always been an advocate of sticking with your own strength’s and style. The article on Julie’s website about Book of your VOICE is the one that gave me a solid kick in the ass. And one I go back and reread often.
That’s not to say there isn’t a lot to be learned out there, on loops in communities and in writing manuals…however I think Julie says it best here:
“…before you start casting off all those great books out there that might or might not inspire something within you to discover your own voice, stop thinking about every piece of advice you ever receive as a rule. It’s just advice. Geez, you don’t listen to every piece of that you get from your mother, do you? “
Before that I couldn’t understand how I’d had success with short stories (with several publishers) and yet I was apparently doing it all wrong according to the contest Judges and the “rules”. Well, there are no rules. I decided then that the only rule I’d follow is to write a story that interests and intrigues ME, and hope that there are readers out ther that share my taste.
And you know what? There are. 
So aspiring writers, ANY writers, checkout Julie’s blog post and article…and remember that readers just want a good story. They don’t care about the “rules” as some organization sees them.
I second that, Sasha!
The Book of your Voice article changed my approach to new WIPs.
by May May 23rd, 2006 at 1:23 pmI love Julie’s stuff. Thanks for the link. :D
by Jordan May 24th, 2006 at 1:39 pmThanks for those thoughts Sasha. Good things to ponder :).
by Anna J. Evans May 24th, 2006 at 3:59 pmHi!
I didn’t realize when I wrote that article how many people would take “offense” to it. I’m not saying that you did by any means.
If the article did offend you, I’m sorry about that. It wasn’t meant to. It was meant to express how I felt after all of the articles and things I’d read. A lot of my writer friends and I have had discussions about this particular thing and I felt I needed to express my opinion.
I hope you have a nice day.
by Bridget Locke May 31st, 2006 at 5:25 pm