52 weeks of qualities of prosperous writers …. and this week is about Passion. If you are a writer, I encourage you to seek out those that give you inspiration and follow them. Christina Katz, the owner/creator of this particular set of qualities is just one such person in my book.

She talks this week about Passion some of which sounded like she’d been looking over my shoulder. 🙂 When I wrote Mirage, now called The Gift of Sight due to its massive number of edits — I had an intense passion for it and the characters I’d created. It was during that writing process that I learned and educated myself about the publishing industry as a whole.

This is also where I realized I’d gotten myself into yet another crazy industry where rock stars flourish and everyone else is well … just passionate. 🙂

Anyway … I wrote the book, submitted it and tada, it’s now in its fifth edit with no publisher. But guess what? I STILL love that story.

Fast forward a bit … I started TWO (yes, 2!!) other novels. The first petered out at 25,000 words … the second at 50,000 words. Why? I stopped being passionate about them. I could put them down when I wanted. I could sleep without feeling like the story kept going in my dreams. I had no real passion.

Then January 2010 hit and I got inspired. I started to write a FOURTH novel and used a bit of the other two plus two of my flash fiction pieces to create this fourth and OMG! I can’t sleep. I have no motivation for anything except WRITING.

That’s manic passion-overkill as she says.

But that’s what’ll get me through the writing process and then the passion for being a writer (in general) will keep me going just like it has with the 1st novel (remember that one? The one I’ve now ignored for two months?) and I’ll go through the motions to find potential agents, query and see what comes of it.

But guess what? No matter the outcome? I wrote them. I put a complete story together and fell in love with both my characters and their lives and if no one but me every gets to know them (well me and my critique partner) then so be it.

That just means I’ll probably find yet another story to write and run with it … 🙂

Where’s your passion today?