To be yourself or not to be

As I read through the countless posts on a number of different writer-centric Facebook pages, I am amazed at the number of people who ask questions about how to write. Not technical questions and not plot questions, but "am I allowed to say" and then just fill in the blank.

People, this is your story; your voice. You do not need the permission of anyone else to tell your story your way. That doesn't mean that there are not legitimate questions, like whether a particular paragraph or sentence has quality, etc. But if you are asking if you are "allowed" to write in first person, then you have not yet found your story or your voice.

That's the thing, I think too many people are "trying" to be writers and "trying" to pen a best-seller. That's crap. A person can no more "plan" a best seller than a painter can "plan" a Mona Lisa. It just ain't fucking happening. I mean, if you want to be a "paint-by-numbers" writer, then there are how to books out there. I consider writing an art and it sullies the whole nature of an art for people to step onto my field and piss all over it with shitty "pre-planned" books.

Hey, I may not be the best writer ever. Hell, I might be one of the worst. But, I am not a guy with a keyboard trying to write a best seller. Would Led Zeppelin be on the Mount Rushmore of rock bands if all they did was sit around and try to write number one songs? Hells no. They'd just be another Poison or Warrant. Hey, those bands have their place, even in my heart, but they did nothing to make the art of rock and roll better. They were just little piss ants who wanted to drink, do drugs and fuck a lot of women. And, you know what, more power to them; they did exactly what they planned. Think anyone will call them trend-setters fifty years from now? No. They'll all be dead or bloated and remembered for being followers.

Don't be a freaking follower. Find your voice. Make your story. Tell it how you want to tell it.

If I followed what some critic said I should, if everyone followed their formula, writing would suck. Faulkner would not have existed. I break a bunch of "rules" when writing. I switch tense, I switch from first to third person and I use sentence structures that are unique to me. I follow Salter like technique with time jumping and I sometimes use stream of consciousness thoughts to write a paragraph. Sometimes I leave those as written and sometimes I use them as a starting point then go back and rehash what flowed during the session.

Some people may like it and some may hate it. Affirmation is great, but I still have to be satisfied that the story I tell is my story and not some pre-determined piece of drivel.