Realizing Anything Is Possible
Lesson Learned & Shared
This year I am taking on the #100dayproject by sharing one lesson a day from my Stop Writing Alone journey. I am looking specifically for the lessons I not only learned myself, but the ones I find myself repeating to writers and creatives in my community over and over again.
Realizing Anything Is Possible
And now for the lesson learned that always makes me giggle inside…
Once upon a time I was a very active member of Twitter chats within the writing community. One day, while typing around one of my writer happy hours I found myself in a side chat with a dragon.
Excuse me?
Yes, a dragon.
Upon further investigation I found out that the dragon in the writer chat was there to discuss the series of books in which it was the protagonist.
I asked if it was a YA fantasy series. The dragon LOLed and said that it was not for the young adult crowd as it was Dragon Erotica.
I opened a new tab. I Googled this new-to-me term and my jaw hit the ground.
Not only was Dragon Erotica a category of fiction I had never heard of, it was HUGE. I went back to the chat and tried to get past the dragon, get to the writer behind the creation, to ask if there was an audience for Dragon Erotica.
The dragon said the niche was large enough of that the writer was able to quit their day job.
It was one of the most inspiring twitter chats I ever experienced. Not because I decided to start writing Dragon Erotica, but because I realized I could write about literally anything. My audience is out there. If Dragon Erotica is a genre that is alive and profitable in the world, then I believe anything could be! I simply had to write MY story and then do the work to FIND my audience and my colleagues wherever they were.
When did you learn that you could write whatever you wanted?
My #100DayProject for 2024
Introducing my #100dayproject for 2024:
To know me is to know I have a teacher soul. At the end of the day, my passion is learning and sharing that learning with anyone willing to listen. So, when it came time to think of a project that I could realistically take on for 100 days straight, it had to come back to that passion.
For the next 100 days, I will share one lesson learned each day that I find myself continually sharing with writers and creatives in my community. There are plenty of things that come up again and again (in fact, I'm kind of betting that there are at least 100 of them!) and it's about time I wrote them all down somewhere. Let's see how far we get with these mini lessons, let's see how many you remember me chanting before, and how many you needed to be reminded of!
That’s so awesome!!!! I first learned that I could write whatever I wanted when my 2nd and 3rd TBIs crumbled My Shot. I was agented and working through a revision for an editor from Del Rey when that happened. Unbeknownst to me and the editor both, my agent did some really shady things, which we only learned 3 years later after chance reconnected us. By then I’d been left with the impression that traditional publishing could never play nicely with my brain injuries, which had struck shackles from my ankles and wrists I’d never known were hindering me.
And yes. It was the erotic aspects. Not dragons. My Gladiators and their Gods. 😈 And out of that experiment, half of which I kept, half of which I scrapped and repurposed, my ginormous Persephone & Haides series was born. Which made me understand I’m not an erotica writer. (I wish. I’d make bank if I could cater primarily to the wank.) But that my writing will never be complete by hinting, using solely poetic language, and especially not closing the bedroom door. Narp. I’m a down n dirty steam-machine, in addition to the sprawling palace intrigues, sword-swinging grit, and soul-searching dives. I pray Substack keeps letting me do what I do here.
Having crossed genre so dramatically assured this editor from a fantasy house that I was not his girl, but I already knew that. I have no idea where my kind of readers are either, but thank you for the reminder to never stop doing what I do, and searching for them. ✨🐲✨
I just about finished my first story, will post it soon. Like your story a lot, gives me hope i can find an audience too.