A Writer's Struggle

It's been about 2 1/2 years since I published my last novel and 3 1/2 years since I've written it. I mainly couldn't focus on writing while trying to plan the wedding and being married. I'm getting back into it now and working on my fourth novel. It took me a minute to get back into writing. I was climbing the hill of writer's block. I will admit though that the writer's block was self inflicted. Four couple of months, I was trying to write on my own like usual. The past three books just came into and the words would just fly off the page. The characters wouldn't leave me alone. I literally was hearing the voices. A true writer indeed. When story lines weren't panning out or when I wasn't hearing anything, I started to doubt myself quite a bit. Am I truly a writer or just crazy enough to write the others? How can I be writer and not write? None of what I was writing made sense. I was trying too hard. While I'm going through this, I'm on my FB timeline and see all of these new novels come out and although I was happy for my fellow writers, I couldn't help and think that I needed to write along the same lines as they. Dive into the same topics and characters -i.e. hood novels. Street life, thug life, etc. is very popular among readers, particularly black readers and I thought to myself maybe I should write about that. I even remember when promoting Karma Has a Name and a reader told me that although she thinks my book will be good, she will only read hood novels. When I asked her why, she said that's what she related to and it made sense. (She still bought a book though -not sure if she read it.) I then tried to write what I thought would be like these books and that's when the writer's block really came in. Anyone who knows me know that I know nothing about street life or 'hood' life. The closest thing I could say was me dating a guy that was all about that life. He grew up in it, lived it day and night, and basically associated any and everything about him to that. I learned a lot during that relationship. Outside of that, as hard as I could to write about that life, it came out fake and rough because not only was I trying too hard but it came off as that. I had to quickly stop that. I was trying to be something I'm not and as a writer, that's when I'm the most real about myself. I had to ask myself why would I write that -for money or more readers? Readers aren't stupid. They'll know if something is genuine or not. So I let that go. 

Once I did that, I started writing. This novel I'm writing now will touch home more than any of my other novels. The first three dealt with topics or dramas of people I knew or I would display traits in my characters that I wished I had (i.e. being a bad girl). It was fun meeting and living with those characters. This novel will hit personal issues that I'm going through. It will be fictional but it'll expand on feelings that I've been having and battles that I'm fighting but with a plot twist of course :) I love writing because not only is it therapy for me but when it's done, I'll be able to say I'm a writer again instead I used to be a writing.So it's coming. I'm going through a writer's struggle but it's coming along. :)