Stop pretending to write

The other night Billy and I were watching TV. A commercial for the new movie, "Hunger Games" came on. (I had never read the books but knew enough that the movie is based on them.) So I was all wow, another author writes a book (series) and not only gets published but has a movie made about them. I just want to get published and settle for mediocre fame.

So Billy looks at me and says, "Maybe when you stop pretending to write you'll actually get published."

I'm taken aback, not in anger but more in a hmmm, go on way. "Explain," I reply and now he has my undivided attention.

And he says: "You write all these things, these articles and other stories that are good, but when you write like you do on your blog, that's great."

Okay. Wait a sec, he thinks my blog posts are great? Cool. Very cool.

"But the articles I write, some need just facts and they don't want the author's PoV," I said.

"All I know is that those posts are interesting. They come from inside your head, they're real," he further explained.

Then he left the room to do whatever man-business he needed to do and I sat there. Thinking.

Who was it that said, "When you write, be real." I think it was Stephen King. It could have been Mark Twain. Shakespeare?
Anyway, Bill doesn't sugar-coat things. He's a great 'first-reader' like that. If it's good, he says so and if it isn't he'll say that, too. And 9 times out of 10 his advice is sound. And who would've thought he'd give the same sage advice as some of the great authors? Especially considering he doesn't like to read? Except when he's pretending to.