passion – Gwen Hernandez

Luck or passion?

August 1, 2015Gwen HernandezWriting Life8 Comments

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. ~ Seneca

When we follow our passion, we're much more likely to meet the luck that makes something really cool happen. ~ Gwen Hernandez, on the Behind the Prose podcast

In 2010, as a newbie writer looking for blog content, I started writing about my favorite software: Scrivener. (Did anyone doubt? 😉 )

It began with how-to posts mainly for my writer friends, who were the only people following me back then. Initially, I had no expectations other than picking up a few new blog followers and plumping up my website’s content.

But a lot more people than I expected were interested in what I had to say. (Awesome David at L&L promoting my posts helped immensely!)

In 2011, I started teaching online courses. By 2012 I had signed a contract to write Scrivener For Dummies. Soon thereafter, I was taking on private training clients and giving in-person workshops for writing groups and conferences. Not bad for a side interest spurred by my other passion: writing romantic suspense.

Getting the book deal was lucky—a crazy confluence of events that you can read about here—but I wouldn’t even have appeared on my publisher’s radar if I hadn’t continued to learn about Scrivener and grow my platform through new posts and online classes.

I would not have been positioned for that luck to strike.

The point of this post is not to point out my good fortune at finding work I love—though I’m pretty damn happy about it—but rather to illustrate an idea.

When you follow your passion, cool things happen.

That’s a recurring theme I’ve noticed in interviews with people who have changed their lives by listening to the little voice inside their head begging them to spread the joy of fitness, take up knitting, become a farmer, or whatever.

Most of them did not set out to start a business or change career paths. They sort of fell into it. Their enthusiasm for the work of their heart put them in the right place, with the right skill set or knowledge, to take advantage when an opportunity appeared.

All they had to do was step through the open door.

Do you spend time on at least one thing that you’re passionate about? If not, why not? What’s one step you could take today to start yourself on that journey?

Really, there’s no downside to doing what you love. Even if you never move beyond part-timer, hobbyist, or fanatic, you’ll be a happier person for following your heart. And what’s cooler than that?

Flashback: Get passionate

You thought this post was going to be about writing sex scenes didn’t you? 😉 Sorry, but I’m talking about passion in the larger sense as defined by the Mac dictionary: strong and barely controllable emotion.

What are you passionate about? Global warming? U.S. involvement in the Middle East? Sea turtles? Education? Adoption? Animals? School arts programs? Immigration?

Pick your passion—no matter what side of the fence you’re on—and find a way to write about it. I don’t mean a position paper or a letter to your editor, though you could. I mean imbue your character with that passion and build a story around it. Or structure a book or series around a group that fights for or against your cause. In researching opposing viewpoints, you might even see the subject in a new light, and it should be easy to make the sparks fly between your characters if they’re on opposite sides of an issue.

Laura Griffin’s Tracers series features a forensics lab that’s dedicated to processing all crime scene evidence and helping law enforcement catch violent criminals. She came up with the idea after she found out that much forensic evidence is never processed or entered into a crime database. She took her frustration and created a fictional group with the passion to make it happen.

Michael Crichton made a fortune writing books about what could go wrong with the research he read about in scientific journals. Jurassic Park, Timeline, and Prey hit a chord with readers because he took a stand on a topic and built a story around it.

Robin Cook did the same thing for medical topics. Just try to eat a fast-food hamburger after reading Toxin. I dare you.

If emotion is the key to memorable characters and keeper-shelf books, then by writing about a topic that gets you emotional, you might just find that all-important element easier to write. And an interesting topic makes the research more fun.

So, figure out what shocks, angers, or delights you, and build a story around it. You might even teach your readers something and get them passionate too. Good luck!

Originally posted September 14, 2010.