Emma vanGrieken 🌼 Fantasy Author

You're making a race of what God intended to be a masterpiece ✨✒🍵

The world wants something that can be marketed under tropes and trends.

And let's be honest, it's important to know how to talk about your work with confidence and clarity.

Sharing your work is a huge part of the journey.

But so many authors - especially those of us who're balancing having a personal mission while pursuing marriage and motherhood - start to see our craft less like an artpiece to share and more like a business to be strategically sold.

"Why would this book be a bestseller?"

"How is it going to fit into the market?"

"Are readers actually interested in what I have?"

And again, YES. Art IS a business!

I'm currently preparing my debut fantasy book, Project Starfall (title coming soon) to query literary agents. And knowing how all of that works + matching my book to those parameters is essential to succeeding in becoming a traditionally published author (my biggest dream since I was 8).

But at the same time...

My work got better

My heart grew more peaceful

My confidence in my skill as an author improved

And I felt the most fulfilled with writing that I ever have

...When stopped thinking about how and if my book would do well and started focusing on how to make MY story the one God put on my heart to write.

So I ask myself:

"Am I diluting this in any way to try and fit a trend or trope I think will sell well?"

"Am I genuinely happy, proud, and excited to share this story as a representation of the gift I've been given to write?"

"Is there anything left to remove?"

Pleasing God AND having a project be sccessful in the world is absolutely possible—

—But not when your path warps from following the mission you're called to pursue, to trying to match a metric the world asks your writing to fit.

God PROMISES us prosperity in Jeremiah 29:11 ☁️

“For I know the plans I have for you... plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. ”

But scipture also tells us, "If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ." - Galatians 1:10

So.

Are you looking at tropes and trends

Or are your e