Trust Your Gut

Gut instincts! We all know about these little feelings that tell us we should do something, but nine times out of ten, we decide it is probably just a hungry feeling and ignore it. It is only after we have made that decision that we realize that it wasn't that urge to hit the fridge, but your intuition telling us to do something. When it comes to writing, we have to always pay attention to our gut instinct,

especially when it comes to story development.

For those of you who have been following me over on Twitter, you have seen I have spent the last several days working through proposal development with one of my clients. We talked yesterday about her latest project and she realized that all of the extra baggage she was putting in her story came from ignoring her gut instincts. She was trying too hard to do with others were doing in their stories and not listening to the real story her brain wanted to tell.

I find so many authors doing things with their stories that simply are the wrong approaches. I always tell authors that there are no right or wrong ways of doing things in writing, but there are definitely wrong ways. Those wrong ways are when you are ignoring that gut instinct.

So, what should you be looking at when it comes to your writing? Consider the following:

• Are you writing in a genre because it is the hottest new trend right now?
• Are you pitching that story to an editor or an agent because someone else told you to do so?
• Why are having your characters say the things that you have them saying? 
• Are you putting something in your story because you just saw it on a blog, or heard it at a workshop?
• Are you adding that sex scene in the story because you have heard that hot is going to sell?

If you are listening to your gut instinct, you will know what to do. Ignore all of these external distractions and just focus on what needs to be done. Listen to your story. 

Trust it and you will be much happier. I promise.