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A THOUSAND TIMES ALL OF THIS!

I used to only write for an audience and I wrote SIX BOOKS by the time I was 22. Because I was just writing the queer stories I couldn't find. And then I hit a personal landmark time when I wasn't yet a Published Author and got depressed and stopped writing. When I worked through that and started again, I also started taking classes and trying to find community.

I was given TERRIBLE advice by a lot of academic background writers and instructors that killed my ability to write, that stopped projects in their tracks, that left me floundering and suddenly unable to get more than a few chapters into anything. I started to realise that *maybe* the problem wasn't me, but the advice I was getting. The cishet white college grads reading my stuff were...not my characters and therefore not my audience. But the damage it's done. My goodness.

Anyway, getting myself a copy of this book. It sounds like it will be a validating text on writing.

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Mar 21, 2023Liked by Elnora Fareman

All the likes. Take all the likes.

I love your writing and style and flow. I'm there. Continue, please.

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The "rules" of writing have tripped me up too. And even though I am white, I am also NOT cis. I've been lucky enough to find a community of LGBTQIA writers and readers, and we all agree that we didn't see ourselves in the classics, or even in much of what the "market" offers to us.

So I've been very relieved to find that I am not alone in my confusion when I struggle over a piece for more hours, submit it, and hold my breath only to be told it's not what that market is looking for.

Which always sounds like "it's not good enough"

But then when I take a closer look at what they've already published...it smells of crap.

So my point is, I applaud you for being persistent enough to look at it all long enough to see the flaws in the instruction manuals we've all been given. I applaud you for calling it all out. And I hope you'll keep writing for YOU. Because what I've read of your words so far speaks to me.

So keep being true to YOU.

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