Your father was a very wise man. It’s easy to stop loving what you’re doing if you’re not following that muse and writing the stories as you see them. I just wish more writers had the courage to do so. They certainly have the freedom.

The last lesson my father taught was that my muse is a vital part of me and that my happiness only depends on whether I love what I’m doing. That for the stories inside me to shine, they have to be told the way I see them. He taught me that I was standing in my own way, trying to shape those stories into copy cats to fit my perception of industry desires, feeding my own frustration, killing my own personal definition of success. And as long as I was doing that, I could never be happy.

The freedom that understanding gave me was/is priceless. Now, I only contract books I’m dying to write, and when I propose them, I don’t worry about whether the plot points or elements are “acceptable”. I worry about whether I’m going to love writing this story, love being with these characters for the duration of the book. I worry about whether I can do them justice, but I what I don’t worry about is whether this book is commercially viable. It either will or won’t be, but that viability has no place in my creation process.

Oddly though, as soon as I started writing my stories the way I saw them, they sold. One right after the other.

I really hope writers can stay true to their art as much as possible. I understand the need to make a living, but I’m also all for an author *not* jumping the shark.