Michelle Griep

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What's Up With Zombies?

Not quite sure why, but these 'lovable' living dead are totally trendy. If I happened to have a finished manuscript about a zombie apocalypse ready to pitch to a publisher, I'd be holding a contract in my hot little hand in a quick-slap minute. 

But I don't.

And the thing is, even if I sat down and started writing the Great American Zombie Novel right now, by the time I typed "The End," the fickle public would already be onto the next latest woo-hoo.

Which brings me to the point of this post...

While it's tempting to write something that'll get your foot in the door at a publishing house, jumping on the current bandwagon isn't necessarily the best way to go. Writing about a topic that you don't have a passion for, that doesn't even mildly interest you, is going to show up in your voice, kind of like a white-bread country singer attempting some hoodrat rap. It's hard to disguise.

My advice? 

Go ahead and consider all the hot-selling genres then do a little introspection before embarking on writing one yourself. It's not wrong to write to the market unless those trendy topics make you throw up. If that's the case, you'd be better off writing about something you love. Then shelve it and wait around until that genre is once again in vogue. What goes around eventually does come around, though you might have to wait a long time.

Unless, of course, zombies really do take over the world.