Journal Entry 3

Recently, my Supervisor has entrusted me to be her brainstorming partner.  She had planned to release a different book from the one that is being released and she asked for my input on plot elements for the first book.  It is quite different from her normal fantasy work and drifts more into the science-fiction genre.  I was honored to be able to help and felt really good about my contribution.   

This first book got sidelined, however, as can happen in a creative job like this, inspiration struck. As she put it, characters from this book that wasn't meant to exist yelled at her to write them into being.  This is both scary and amusing.  Nonetheless, she wanted some help coming up with a name for this trilogy.  I helped brainstorm for that as well.  This is the kind of thing that got me excited to do this internship in the first place.  I love helping in the actual creative endeavor and it helps me gain a look into the mind of a successful writer who is working through her creative process.  I think this is especially important because her mind does not just consider her own vision but she is attuned to the market in a way I am not.  Her mind works with the trends and is looking for a way to give the people what they want.  I find this admirable.  Too often, it seems like creatives have their own agendas which differ from the expectation of their consumers and the consumers reject them.  If I can learn to want what my readers want, I will keep making content that they will keep consuming.   

My experience with the Critique group continues.  They have been very helpful in my own writing.  It is easy to overlook your own flaws and leaps of logic when you are deep in your own head.  When your work is shown to others, they get to see what you couldn’t.  I have also done my best to be helpful to the others in my group.  I try to supply a different perspective and they have been positively responding to my work and criticism.   

My supervisor also tasked me with finding examples of presenting background information in continuing series and spinoffs.  Her newest release is the first of a spinoff series she will be doing in her popular fantasy setting.  She had me look for books that had introductions to their settings so she could find which styles she liked and devise her own way of introducing her world.  She has told me before that emulation is nothing to be ashamed of.  Authors emulate each other all the time and that isn’t something to fear.  Imitation is good if it doesn’t go too far and so long as you are using what other people have done to improve your own work and not try to sell someone else’s work as your own. 

I think that my future work will be even more interaction with the new release.  A lot of work has to be done to get a new book out.  I hope to take some of that burden off her shoulders.