Focus

I don’t even know why I wrote that word. As I did so, I was thinking about my daily word count, my day job, my night job, the podcast I’m working on and my impending second foray into fatherhood.

What was I talking about?

I wish I could focus, but I can’t. It’s not that social media or the internet are distracting me, I just don’t have enough time in the day. I can focus just long enough to prioritize what I get to do today.

What I get to do. Usually, that’s writing.

Wake up, get ready for the day, get coffee going, watch the boy while the wife gets ready for her day while carrying around our impending addition with a level of patience that I would never have. With the due date in single digits, focus has no meaning anymore for any of us.

Go to work. Write during breaks. Work more. Commute home.

Or to the second job.

Sometimes I’m jealous at the focus of my two-year old actually being able to sit down and watch an episode of Curious George for five minutes before doing something else.

Perhaps this would be a good time to try my hand at short stories.

What was I talking about?

Write What You Like

I'd say write what you know, but if I followed that advice I would have written books about why I like whiskey. 

And beer.

Kind of a niche audience for that one as opposed to mysteries and thrillers.

Of course, that can make things difficult. These days the big sellers are NF and YA. Well, I'm not good at telling the truth and I disliked growing-up so much that I can't even think of a fictitious account of it that would want me to revisit those feelings. 

So I write mysteries. I like mysteries.

And I write thrillers. I like thrillers.

Though I'm not a fan of complete sentences. See what I did there?

If you really want to follow the market and try to write the book that will get an agent's head to turn just because that genre is hot at the time, good luck and more power to you. 

Personally, if I don't really want to write something it turns into a forced, hackneyed rant. 

Yes, I know I just gave you the underhand, slow pitch set up. I'm comfortable with that. 

If you like romance or fantasy or whatever, just write that. Write about the things you find passion and humor and intrigue in. 

Enjoy writing and it will show through on the pages.