To thine own self be true

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Ah, Will Shakespeare can turn a phrase, can't he?  The above is from "Hamlet," Polonius to his son, Laertes.

Much has been made lately of authors writing to their young selves. There's even a collection of letters from famous authors to their teen selves, "The Letter Q."  This one is in regard to sexual orientation but there are others, plus blog posts galore, many inspired by Oprah Winfrey.

You know what I'd tell my younger self? Be true to yourself. Be honest about what you really love.  Don't waste time on things and people you don't feel passion for. It's not like I'm telling Teen Leigh to be all Goth or not to drink or want to hang out with the popular kids. But Teen Leigh definitely had a dark streak, one that she didn't think she should have - or had a right to have. In her mind, people who liked reading horror or science fiction, who imagined impossible worlds and insane characters, were people who had unusual past lives, who experienced trauma or abuse or other hardships.  Girls who grew up in middle class households and attended women's colleges, who danced and studied hard, generally and generically speaking, "good girls," didn't like those things.

For much of her life, that Teen Leigh's "preferred" thoughts prevailed and the things she liked and dreamt about were pushed aside.  She felt false a lot of the time but then the fake truth became kind of real. Until now.

While I am super proud of having been published by a big publisher and I love seeing my books on library shelves, I don't think Teen Leigh would have read them.  She haunted the stacks for creepier reads, for uneven books, messy books, stories that didn't have happy endings and whose narrators were good people who went bad. Lots of middle-aged people will tell you the same thing, "Never regret. Do what you love." That's because, when you reach a certain place in your life, you can see the end of the tunnel. You don't want to spend one minute more doing something you don't like.

Writers are told all the time that they should only write what they love. Part of the reason for that is that it takes a long time to write a book and you will spend many, many hours with your characters. But the other part of it is that you can only write passionately and honestly about things you truly love. As I explore darker elements in my stories, characters and situations that I might not have written about in the past, I am finally finding the passion that was missing.  I love what I'm writing,  I love what I'm doing.

"I want to be Stephen King!"

Full disclosure: I love King's work and admire him tremendously. He is a writer's writer who loves reading, who writes every day, who walks the walk, as they say.

Photo: Reuters

Too many writers claim to want to be King when what they really want is his money and success.  Or they want to write like him.  They want his freedom and his fans. I'm not going to tell these writers they shouldn't want these things. People write for all kinds of reasons, although honestly, if they want a guarantee of money and fame, they should probably do something else.

When I say I want to be Stephen King, I mean I want to write with passion and to touch people the way he has. His work leaves a lasting impression on readers and that is what I would like to achieve. To attempt to write "like King," writing horror stories or thrillers or gore the way he does, can only lead to a mediocre interpretation of a master. And mediocrity is not an option.

King admonishes all wannabe writers to read as much as they can.  To him, that separates the wheat from the chaff.  If you can't manage to read regularly, how can you be a good writer? And honestly, why would you want to write if you don't like to read? I teach ballet because I love to dance. If I can't pass along that passion, why do it at all?