The above is a quote from Daniel Handler (AKA Lemony Snicket, AKA a genius, AKA author of my favorite children’s series: A Series of Unfortunate Events) in an article from Stanford Daily.
I stumbled upon it because recently I’ve decided to start writing a middle-grade novel. Naturally, I wanted to seek out advice from the brilliant MG authors before me, and Lemony Snicket just happens to be one of the best. His quote reminded me of something I’ve been telling myself for a long while, which is to stop focusing on perfection and just focus on telling the story that I want to be told, to not worry about how it will be received or if anyone will pick it up for publication.
The real beauty of creating stories is that they’re your stories. Don’t take that magic away from yourself. If you love them and nurture them and go to bed at night knowing you did your best, that will bring more satisfaction than writing towards what you think everyone else wants to read.
It’s really hard to silence the pressures around us, but I’m going to read this quote when I’m going through one of those hard patches and remind myself to keep trucking along with what I think needs to be said.
