This Week's Topic: Tik-Tok Trends: Have I Tried Any Reading or Writing Trends?
Oh, y'all, no. Not even when I was in middle school--when being fashionable was a social life or death necessity--was I trendy. These days, I'm vaguely aware of what's what, and even then only the hype in my genre. I'm aware of the Fourth Wing phenomenon and the rise of Romantasy as a marketing category (romantic fantasy and fantasy romance have always existed, it's just that Publishing didn't want to acknowledge it, because ewwww Romance cooties! {eyeroll})
As a reader, I'm interested in the on dit because big sales numbers means the gatekeepers will shepherd some really good books that were previously rejected because "there wasn't a market for that." Admittedly, I usually wait for the second or third wave of the trend, so I reap the benefit of the hidden gems finally getting their due.
As a writer, I pay attention to trends for the sake of my advertising but not for my creative process. I don't write fast enough to release to an ephemeral trend. Ah, if only!
As for using Tik-Tok itself, that'd be a hard nope. Ain't nobody needing to see the disastrophe on this side of the screen.
