Writing isn’t in your genes; it’s in your jeans. by Julie Butcher

I did not inherit the ability to write. Yes, my brother, Jim Butcher, is a wonderful list-making author. And yes, my sister-in-law, Shannon K Butcher, is probably the hottest, best, upcoming paranormal-romance author on two feet. And yes, I have the most amazing agent in the country, Deidre Knight. But none of us have writing in our gene pool.

We have reading in common. We all can be stubborn and bull-headed and we all like steak but, we don’t have writing in our genes.

We have writing in our jeans. We sit and we write, butt in the chair, hands on the keyboard—#amwriting.

In the beginning, WE ALL SUCKED. Everyone sucks at the start. Period. EVERYONE. The difference between published and not is accepting that the first thing you write sucks eggs. Until you know it stinks you won’t get better.

It should be in the Writer’s Bible. IN THE BEGINNING THOU SHALT SUCK: Thy characters and thy sub-plots shalt suck unto the second generation.

There is no magic fairy that does your laundry and there’s not one to whap you on the head and give you the perfect first novel. There is hard work and then, for those of you who don’t want to work, there is suckage and giving up.

Some people are hobby writers and there is nothing wrong with that. They write for the pleasure of putting words on paper and to say “Someday.”

If you want to write as a job, treat it like a job. You work at a job. It is work. If it was fun they’d call it play and you wouldn’t get any money. If you play at writing, it is fun. If you work at writing, IT IS HARD. You give up TV shows or your video game time. You give stuff up, you work hard, and writing gets easier.

But it’s never in your genes; it’s in your jeans.