Use the force?

So I am sitting here watching one of my favorite shows, Fringe and beside me is The Writer Magazine opened to page 36. Normally when I watch TV, no matter if it's my all-time favorite movie or what, I always have something to work on at the same time; a book I'm reading and can't put down, a magazine I am glancing at and reading an article that caught my eye, or working on a craft project. Nearly always my computer is on my lap, or very near-by. My computer is many things to me, an outlet, a resource, my connection to the outside world, or some-days even a source of headaches.

But all these things got me thinking about something that I often wonder about myself. First let me explain the article in The Writer, which spurred this thought process. The article is called, "Earth to writer -- Listen up". The sub-heading reads, "A former science-fiction/fantasy editor at Penguin and Random House describes the most common writing and marketing mistakes she saw", the article is written by Liz Scheier. So I skipped right to the main points. I won't go into detail on all the points, if you want to know you'll need to buy the magazine. So the 4th point says "Hopping on the trend band-wagon". So in the 2nd paragraph explaining this point this stuck out to me, she was talking about an author she met that was a great historical fantasy writer who then tried to write contemporary and had never read this type of genre enough to understand it or how to write it. The result of this new direction failed. So her closing statement is this, "Spread your wings, by all means, but don't try to force what isn't working."
This stuck out to me because when I was taking my writing class I opted to challenge myself for my last assignment in the course. Why I waited until the last is beyond my own understanding. Up to that point I was writing primarily romance/drama type stories and felt very comfortable there. But, I chose, for whatever reason, to try to write a mystery story. So I tried to outline it and come up with something to work for the teen market. I wasn't really happy with my plot, but my deadline was fast approaching and I needed to turn something in. I looked back on the books I read as a pre-teen and tried to go in a similar direction, but I was delving into something I haven't read in many years, and didn't know how to write. Needless to say, my story failed. I pushed it out, I wasn't happy with it, but I handed it in. My instructor was less than pleased with it. She did however give me valuable insight on this genre type. She gave me the option of re-working it, starting it over or sending in something new all-together. I opted for the 3rd.

So it turned out to be a blessing. My story that I wrote to hand in as my revision was nothing like my original. I went back to what I had been doing. The story turned out very well, and even I was happy with what I wrote. I was excited and a little nervous to hand it in. To my great joy my instructor had nothing but praise for my story calling it "stellar" and telling me to try and market it. I found this to be very difficult given the genre, the age, and the length. It is still my best short-story I have written and I am still working on getting it published, but in the meantime is has been entered into a literary contest.

It has always had me thinking about this, why do I write teen love stories? As a pre-teen and teen I read a variety of stories. For a long time I was reading The Nancy Drew Files, Sweet Valley Twins, and Sweet Valley High. I also read other books and an older teen read things more of the crime and thriller nature. As an adult I began my love of comic books and all things science fiction, reading mainly Star Wars series. Then a friend told me to read Twilight, which is, as I found out shortly after reading the first page, a teen fiction. At the time I had just finished my writing class. I read the whole series in about a month. And so began my quest for more young adult books. But, this does not answer my question. For someone who loves science fiction/fantasy, why do I write what I write? I do get a lot of inspiration from my old diaries, although there was not a lot of lovie dovie stuff in them other than a crush here and there. As an older teen and young adult there were a lot of angry words, and depression and the need and want for love.I didn't even start dating until I was 19 and don't feel I was love obsessed. My old diaries really are more about character traits and feelings than story ideas.

What is the point of this post? Well...because I am currently writing a teen fiction book length story. It was an idea I had come up with for a class assignment. My instructor thought it had promise and told me it sounded like a book length story. I decided to work on it but changed some details. Since I love science-fiction, my plan was to include this somehow in the story. As I am writing the story now though I am struggling to find a way to fit in the idea I had in my outline that my instructor saw promise in...and why is that? Because I seem to be stuck on the teen angst and romance part. I am currently in chapter three and have been there a while as if I am stuck because in my head I keep thinking about how I am going to fit in this scifi twist. I'm hopeful that I can get out of my head and just write and it will all come together, but my head seems to be my own worst enemy. I am always thinking about this story, an idea for another story, or this or that...too many ideas in my head floating around and overlapping each other. It's hard to make sense of it all. I literally keep a notepad in my car so that while I am driving and something pops in, I can jot it down the first chance I get...just to get it out of head and stop cluttering it up.

What I really need a teacher, an article, anything to show me is how to focus and stop sabotaging myself. But anyway, that 4th point in the article made me remember that horrible story I wrote, that I forced out, even though I knew it wasn't working. It really has me thinking that maybe if my current story isn't flowing out naturally then it's time to toss it as well. I am hoping not as I am beginning to understand and like my character in the story, I just need to figure out the whole plot. I spent so much time researching for the story, for settings and doing character studies that I would hate to toss it. I got some positive feedback from posting the first chapter on Goodreads.com, so maybe there's hope still. Look for it here on my blog soon.

If you take anything away from this post, take this, "don't force what isn't working"...use this in your everyday life.