Most aspiring novelists are advised to write about what they know. Which isn’t all that helpful when your protagonist is spread-eagled on an inter-stellar operating table about to be dissected by a laser-driven hive mind.

So in the interests of being helpful, let me offer this small piece of advice.

Write about what you love.

This is not based on sentiment. The only thing that keeps most of us going in the knock-down, drawn-out, occasionally exhilirating, often frustrating, seemingly endless roller-coaster ride that is novel writing is a passion for what we do. Without it, this torturous exercise in delayed gratification would defeat us.

Whether it’s sci fi, literary, high fantasy, blockbuster, childrens’ or bodice-ripper, it’s got to be what you love reading and writing.  Novel writing is an ultra-marathon. You are in it for the long haul and if you don’t love it, you just ain’t going to make the distance.

You have to love the training, the thousands of hours spent reading till your eyes bleed, the daily ritual of writing, something, anything, even when you don’t feel like it. Especially when you don’t feel like it.

Those who wait for inspiration are waiting for Godot.  Inspiration comes after you start writing. Trust me, there is no writing problem that cannot be solved by writing your way through it.

Writing about what you love isn’t confined to genre. The characters must speak to you. How else could you bear to spend months, if not years, in their company? They must have hidden depths that fascinate, intrigue, madden and delight. You have to feel their pain, laugh with them, cry for them, even want to slap them, or worse. But you have to feel them moving and talking inside you.

If your characters are not real to you, they won’t be real to your readers.  If your story doesn’t keep you up at nights, it won’t keep anyone else up either.

It takes courage to commit to what you love.  So, if you think you can give up writing, then maybe you should, because clearly you don’t love it enough.

“The chief commodity a writer has to sell is his courage. And if he has none, he is more than a coward. He is a sellout and a fink and a heretic, because writing is a holy chore.” Harlan Ellison