{"id":3164,"date":"2019-09-01T21:23:31","date_gmt":"2019-09-02T03:23:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pjmaclayne.com\/?p=3164"},"modified":"2019-09-01T21:23:40","modified_gmt":"2019-09-02T03:23:40","slug":"egos-and-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pjmaclayne.com\/?p=3164","title":{"rendered":"Egos and Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

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September 2, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Does a big ego help or hurt writers?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don’t know if my ego is big enough to answer this week’s question!<\/p>\n

Here’s the deal: A writer has to have a bit of an ego to think they can take words and and mold them into a story that others will enjoy while, at the same time, doing justice to their characters. But that ego has to be small enough to allow the characters to tell you their story the way they want to. It’s a constant balancing act<\/p>\n

\"\"Take my book\u00a0 Wolves’ Knight as an example. I’d planned out a romance subplot for Tasha, my main character, and even\u00a0 started writing the scene where she and the planned romantic lead got hot and heavy with each other. And promptly got stuck, because she started fighting me. She had a different idea about how things should go. I had to set my ego aside and swap up the plot to satisfy her.<\/p>\n

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\"\"A similar thing happened with The Baron’s Cufflinks. I’d written what I thought was a great chase scene, but something didn’t sit right. The action was great, the words were fine, but it just didn’t work. Then Harmony, my main character, convinced me it was because I’d told it all wrong. That wasn’t the way it happened. I put aside my ego, scrapped the scene, and rewrote it the way she wanted. I have to admit, it was better her way, but I still liked mine! It involved the sheriff and the highway patrol, a bad guy or three, and Harmony throwing her shoes at one of them. Thankfully, I was able to use pieces of it in the revised version.<\/p>\n

On the other side, you have to have a healthy dose of ego to get out in the public and sell books once you have them written. To engage total strangers in a public setting and ask them to buy a book isn’t easy at first. I’ve gotten better at it, but I still have to psych myself up for each public appearance. There’s always the fear that no one will want to talk to you. Even on social media you need to interact with people you’ve never met.<\/p>\n

(If you want to check out my books, you can start from my front page, here:\u00a0http:\/\/www.pjmaclayne.com\u00a0<\/a>)<\/p>\n

I hope you’ll take a moment to check out the other authors on the hop and see how their egos hold up to writing. You can follow the links below. But before you go, feel free to leave a comment.<\/p>\n

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You are invited to the Inlinkz<\/strong> link party!<\/p>\r\nClick here to enter<\/a><\/div><\/div>\r\n