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a
one-of-a-kind writer. That’s what makes your voice unique and your
writing different from everyone else.
    The agent is also a unique person, with
certain likes and dislikes and beliefs in what sells and what
doesn’t and who will buy what and why and how every writer should
follow the recent trend and have a vampire do something on page
three.
    So you, young writer, believe in this myth of
career planning and trust some stranger to tell you what to write.
The stranger has a different upbringing, a different set of values,
and no idea at all who you really are as a person. They don’t know
your voice or what makes you unique. In fact, to them, you need to
be more like everyone else.
    Yet you let the stranger tell you what to
write. And then you wonder why you are not passionate about your
writing anymore. Duh.
    From the fact that each of us is different,
each of us is unique, it should become clear that no writer should
ever listen to anyone else, family, spouse, kids, workshop, or
agent to tell them what to write next.
    Just write your own book. That way lays
success. Anything else is just a disaster or failure waiting to
happen.
    BUSINESS vs. AGENT CAREER PLANNING MYTH
    Agents flat don’t know a writer’s business.
That is a truth. Some may think they do, but they don’t understand
writer cash flow, don’t understand how writers make money, let
alone how much time and effort it takes us to produce a product.
They don’t know and shouldn’t be expected to know. (If you think
all your writing money comes through your agent, wow, do you have a
lot to learn about the business of being a writer.)
    But to an agent only concerned with their own
business (which writers do not understand, either), they want to
sell books. And if there is a current trend, agents want their
clients to write into that current trend, even though a trend is
usually two years old by the time an agent catches a whiff of
it.
    I had an agent call me four years after the
vampire craze started and ask if I had a vampire novel. Wow, that
was a human ahead of the curve. Not. Another agent called me after
the Titanic movie became a hit and said, “Didn’t you publish a book
about the Titanic once?” I said I had a novel that partially set on
the Titanic, but that was it, and it didn’t fit. Agent didn’t
believe me and wanted to see it, so I sent it and then agent wrote
me a snippy note asking why I thought that book would ever fit
being reprinted. I just laughed and said nothing.
    So, because the agent thinks it would be good
business for you to sell another book just like your last one, or
worse yet, just like the one they just sold for another client,
they tell you to write that. And if that one sells, they tell you
write it again. And again. And again, until finally it doesn’t sell
anymore and they drop you.
    Now understand, I am not talking about series
characters, or writers who love to write just mysteries or just
science fiction. Back to the top. Write what you love first and
foremost, then worry about how to sell it. If you love mysteries,
write them. If you love science fiction, write that. If you have a
series character you love to spend time with, keep writing books
with that character.
    But if the only reason you are writing the
next mystery is because your agent wanted you to write it when your
passion has moved to romantic suspense, then you are in
trouble.
    To an agent’s business, it makes great sense
to tell writers to write the same book over and over again.
    To a writer’s business, it makes no sense to
write anything they are not passionate about. To do anything else
dooms the business.
    Speed Advice from all three perspectives:
Art, Personal, and Business.
    Well, every agent I know will utter the
phrase: “Slow down and take your time and do your best work.”
    That career advice shows ZERO understanding
of how writing is done from the creative side of the brain, how
each writer writes at their own natural speed, how