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Write a Bestseller— By Having fun!

© Deborah Cannon

There are scads of authors who want to write novels. Half of them want to write a bestseller. The way to do it, according to the experts is to have fun. Don't take yourself too seriously. If you try writing a bestseller on purpose, you will probably fail. Too much that's unpredictable is involved: demographics, talk-show endorsements, book promotion, marketing and distribution etc. Write the story that you want to write and don't beat yourself up if it gets rejected. Too many would-be authors fall to cynicism, depression and despair when it takes too long to get published. So many, in fact, that a website exists called rejectioncollection.com where disappointed writers commiserate and complain about the publishing industry. It is better to stay positive. If you don't enjoy writing, why write?

Here are some tips for staying positive:

Dean Koontz on having fun writing: "I had written most of my life, undeterred when the pay was poor . . . so I was unlikely to stop when, at last I found an audience that liked my work. It isn't the money that motivates: It's the love of the process itself, the storytelling, the creation of characters who live and breathe, the joy of struggling to take words and make a kind of music with them . . . That is the secret to a successful, prolific career as a writer. Have fun, entertain yourself with your work, make yourself laugh and cry with your own stories, make yourself shiver in suspense along with your characters . . ."

Stephen King on having an ideal reader: "I think that every novelist has a single ideal reader; that at various points during the composition of a story, the writer is thinking, 'I wonder what he/she will think when he/she reads this part?' For me, that first reader is my wife, Tabitha. She has always been an extremely sympathetic and supportive first reader. But she's also unflinching when she sees something she thinks is wrong."

Alistair MacLeod on choosing a topic and genre that you're passionate about: "Write what you care about, what you worry about."

Piers Anthony on the realm of imagination as passion for writing: ". . . the fantastic genre provided me with my anchorage. And so it was perhaps inevitable that I become a creature of that genre, as I am today. Piers Anthony is my strength; it is a pseudonym, but more of my reality is associated with it than with my mundane identity. I was always a nonentity in Mundania, and remain so, but in fantasy I am a figure of consequence.

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