Finding Your Style and Resisting the Urge to Follow the Crowd

Lately, I've been going through a sort of crisis with the fact that I have next to nothing published. It seems like many other people my age are living on their own with amazing jobs, doing what they love. Meanwhile, I am stuck in the same rut I have been in for years. So, I decided to do something stupid in an effort to make some money off of writing: sell out. 

I was struggling to write a children's book because they tend to be easier to publish since they are much shorter and printing costs are low. However, I came to the realization that writing at a 1st grade level is not my style. The story was boring to me; and, if it is boring to me, you can bet that it would be boring to the kids reading it too. There was no way that this would sell, and, even if it did, I would hate it. 

I had to come to terms that my style is not suited for the profitable market of publication. I like big words and prose-like descriptions. I also like writing Gothic literature, and it's hard to write that for youngins, being that it would be too scary for them. I like writing deeply psychological character-focused stories with themes too complex for children to understand. I might be able to get away with writing a 4th or 5th grade level children's novel if I push the fantasy aspect of my writing over the psychological stuff, but it would no doubt take a very long time for me to find the inspiration to get through an entire novel when it takes me over a month to complete a simple short story. 

Yes, this post was a lot more rambling than my last one, but I wanted to share these thoughts because I am sure there are other writers out there who had the same thought as I did to write what is popular with audiences just to make some quick cash when it really goes against the very essence of your work. My advice is not to go down that path because you will struggle the whole way through writing it, and you will hate yourself for it. Writing is pain, yes, but it is also supposed to be fun, and you should be proud of the work you put out into the world. Don't follow the crowd because the average reader these days likes crap like Fifty Shades of Grey, so what do they know? Someone who reads just what is popular and can't form their own opinions is not worth your talent.