Hi there—it’s your friendly neighborhood dark romanticist/lover of angsty M/M lovers, Ellory Samhain here, tuning in to give you a few thoughts on the writing process.

As the prophet Chuck (aka God) on Supernatural famously says, “Writing is hard.”

Is it, though? Over years of developing our craft, we’ve all struggled to find just the right turn of phrase to make our readers laugh, or break their hearts, or get their pulses pumping. And some of us might occasionally have to edit our way out of saying “just,” or “actually,” or “actually just,” three times in the same paragraph. *raises hand sheepishly* We’re all actually just trying to express ourselves.

Writing itself is easy, after a bit (OK, years) of practice. The challenge, for this reporter, is to maintain desire to express in a world that doesn’t seem to be listening. We wordsmiths aren’t smithing these words just to hear ourselves smith. If we’re all merely players, our plays need an audience. Don’t they?

Shakespeare would have us believe all the world’s our stage, but the theater’s dark and silent. What good is shouting into the void?

I’ve spoken at length with another obscure, much more experienced author, December Nolan, about this. From these conversations I’ve gleaned a few key things:

1. We write for ourselves. I’m a voracious reader, and at a certain point, I just wasn’t finding the characters, relationships, and worlds I wanted to escape to in published works. So I thought, I guess I have to do it myself.
2. Every book has its home in a soul somewhere. Whatever you’re writing, someone out there needs it.
3. The zeitgeist changes with every work added to it. It just does, even if ostensibly no one has read it. The ripples of your intention spread out into the world, and something shifts, if only a little.

I’ve been profoundly moved and changed by December Nolan’s works. Her characters live inside me now, forever. Frequently I hear their voices, and I laugh at their antics, or feel an ache in my chest for their plight, as much as for any “real” person I’ve ever known. They are real.

So maybe the theater is dark. But if out there, in the empty silence, one person is waiting to hear your words, shout them to them. Shine your light.