This might get a little longwinded so bear with me 🙂
How many of you remember arguing with your parents when you were a teen and desperately wanted to color your hair?
My daughter used to drive me crazy with these requests.
“Please, Mom, Stephanie’s mom let her do it.”
Or my personal favorite.
“You just don’t understand.”
No amount of talking would persuade her that it was a fad and it would pass. And I refused to allow her to change that beautiful golden-brown she’d been blessed with at birth.
Stale-mate.
Years later she became a mom and when her son wanted his hair shaved on the sides and colored blue on the top, she bought removable dye and did it for him.
The lesson?
Times change. People change.
What does this have to do with writing you say?
Maybe nothing, but recently I’ve been hearing lots about author branding and when I delved further into what this mysterious identity might mean, this is what I found.
From a Google search:
Branding is one of the most important aspects of any business, large or small, retail or B2B. An effective brand strategy gives you a major edge in increasingly competitive markets.
business – The Basics of Branding – Entrepreneur
JACQUIE BIGGAR is a bestselling author of Romantic Suspense who loves to write about tough, alpha males who know what they want, that is until they’re gob-smacked by heroines who are strong, contemporary women willing to show them what they really need is love. She is the author of the popular Wounded Hearts series and has just started a new series in paranormal suspense, Mended Souls.
She has been blessed with a long, happy marriage and enjoys writing romance novels that end with happily-ever-afters.
Jacquie lives in paradise along the west coast of Canada with her family and loves reading, writing, and flower gardening. She swears she can’t function without coffee, preferably at the beach with her sweetheart. 🙂
Free reads, excerpts, author news, and contests can be found on her web site:
You can follow her on at http://Facebook.com/jacqbiggar , http://Twitter.com/jacqbiggar
Or email her via her web site. Jacquie lives on Vancouver Island with her husband and loves to hear from readers all over the world!
You can also join her street team on Facebook: Biggar’s Book Buddies
And sign up for her newsletter-
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Word by Word 
Inspiring post! Thanks for sharing, Jacquie 🙂
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Thanks Joanne, it’s a steep learning curve. 🙂
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Great post, Jacquie, and I love this topic. Voice is something I find myself remarking on when I judge contests and a writer really stands out for me. And what I seem to lose the minute I try to plot–which is why I quit trying and embraced my pantser self 🙂
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So true! I know many authors who plot and are very successful at it-Jennifer Crusie for one, but whenever I try if feels forced, not like ‘me’ at all 🙂
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My mother would have never ever let us change our hair color. I grew up in the age of blonde hair blue eyed girls and here I was with brown and brown. She was old school. I grew to love my brown hair even more. It’s me.
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I was a tomboy so it didn’t bother me as much, but my daughter always wanted to walk to the beat of her own drum. We beat heads all the time, lol
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Hey, Jacquie. Ah, the joy of raising daughters! Certainly had our battles. Not hair color, but pierced ears! Should’ve let that one go, because then I was faced with the makeup issue and I’d used up my creds. LOL
Loved your comparison about voice. When I began, I used to hate “they” the experts telling me just to find my voice! What the hey! With never any good advice about how to do that. I think I’ve finally found mine. And no I seldom read out of the romantic suspense genre. 1) Because I really, really like having both of those elements in books. 2) What’s okay in one genre doesn’t necessarily cross over, and I don’t want to get messed up. I have a friend who writes cozies and I read hers, but I’m sorry, I’m just not spending time with dragons, shapeshifters, and demons. Which I have in the past, but I’m much more interested in a person’s internal demons. Great post, Jacquie. I shared. 🙂
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Thanks, Marsha. The earring dilemma, that’s one I lost too. My girl went through a phase where they put some kind of plug thing in their ears that makes the hole grow larger and larger! Not sure why they think that’s fashionable, lol. I’ve been reading some women’s fiction lately, just started the new Kristan Higgins, On Second Thought, that I received from NetGalley, it’s so good!
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Sorry – I’m a little late to the party. I loved your analogy of a writing voice or brand to hair color. I think this is what I struggle with the most of finding my own “color” and not something used by everyone else. It feels forced, unnatural. Thanks for the reminder and great post, Jacquie!
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Trust me, you have a lovely voice, my friend! Do what your gut tells you, never mind the nay-sayers!
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Reblogged this on Book Smart TV and commented:
Romantic Suspense author, Jacquie Biggar, writes a fabulous post on how trends in writing are like trends in hair color. Enjoy!
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Aw, thank you, Diana!
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