Follow your heart?

[JWREmmett]

People say follow your heart, but this is a dangerous philosophy.

The heart says follow it.

One ignores or answers. I suppose ignoring can continue, but it persists.

.... it will persist.

 

[hopewrites]

Better to betray wisdom than my soul?

Of course. Wisdom is a shield to hide behind, convention a sword to subdue the masses with. Wisdom should be used, not followed. Following wisdom leaves one blind to all else.

 

[chrispenycate]

Into asymptomatic auricular fibrillation? Actually, I'm not convinced I have a heart, in the sense of focus of emotions. Probably why it's so ridiculous for me to keep attempting poetry. And the mechanical pump one doesn't seem too reliable, either. Certainly not leading anywhere I have any great desire to follow.

Which probably, since the majority of humanity seems to do most of its thinking with endocrine glands rather than neurones, means I'm never going to be a mass-market taste.

 

[monsterchic]

I try as hard as I can, but the people surrounding me tell me that I'm nuts for doing it. Maybe it's because my perceptions of the world are different than most of the people around me...As soon as I graduate, I'm going to college for creative writing, and then living on a little homestead in the woods. That's where I'll follow my heart to, and that's where no one else can tell me that I'm crazy.

 

[JWREmmett]

I try as hard as I can, but the people surrounding me tell me that I'm nuts for doing it.

Sane people are uninterested in sanity.

 

[JWREmmett]

Surely you should never follow just one

Nor neglect any one.

 

[JWREmmett]

We have heads and hearts and souls for a reason. I think we are happiest when we are listening to all of them

That is the reason!

 

[Freya Robertson]

Milk of course!

Hob nobs rule. Especially when they're slightly warm and two stick together to form a hob nob sandwich.

--

If you want to be an author, then writing has to be treated like a business, by looking at the market, targeting work accordingly, being professional and listening to your head.

However. The writing itself has to come from the heart, IMHO. Or what's the point? Most of us long to make millions, but ultimately the love of writing is what drives us, and if we don't write about subjects or areas we love, there won't be any passion in it. And even if there isn't anything else out there like your new idea and it doesn't seem marketable, go for it -everyone's always telling us that agents and publishers are looking for something different.

It is a long, hard road for most of us, though. So I do sympathise if the "write from the heart" tenet feels a bit stale sometimes.

 

[Hex]

Hi, Freya. Welcome

--

I'm a bit fickle and I can love several things simultaneously.

When I'd (almost) finished my last wip there was a story that I really wanted to write next. The problem was, it was dystopian YA (or bordering on it) and the market is (apparently) completely saturated with dystopian YA. I didn't want to spend a year working on something that stood no chance of selling.

Now I'm writing a historical fantasy thing (silly decision -- it's SO MUCH more work when I can't make everything up in my head) and I love this story quite as much as the one I thought I had to write.(*) Fickle, see?

(*) Though one day I'll come back and write that one. Because it's fabulous too and has far fewer fish in it.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I am coming to terms with the fact I seem to have a bent to writing dark stuff. Not sure why, i read lots of fluffy chicklits, but since wip no. 4 is the darkest yet, it seems a theme. But it seems impossible to fight one's heart. Still, at least they are at the same end of the market. i spend too much time writing stuff there is no market for. I am sadly hopeless at that. Then again when i do write for a market by the time i finish it, the market has moved on... Hey ho.

 

[Freya Robertson]

Thanks for the welcome! And yes Springs I know what you mean about the market moving on. Especially when lots of SF & F is longer than, say, your average category romance. That's why I think writing from the heart is so important, because if we try to follow fashion, we'll end up in 70s style flares and kipper ties

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Hi Freya, welcome to the Chrons. (You mean I shouldn't be wearing this? )

 

[hopewrites]

no springs, your good. In fact, you make it look good! That's how things come back into fashion you know. Someone comes along who is following their heart rather than the times and does so with conficance and flair. Then everyone who wants to have that confidence follows after them not knowing it was the heart and not the pants that made them look so good.

 

[JWREmmett]

I am coming to terms with the fact I seem to have a bent to writing dark stuff. Not sure why ...

Tolkien insisted that the fact that he was "a Christian (which can be deduced from my stories), and in fact a Roman Catholic," was the most important and "really significant" element in his work.