"Why can't I write about whatever I feel like writing about?"

Isn't the appeal of becoming an artistic writer the notion that you will be as free as the breeze, free to write about whatever you please? (Even to make it rhyme? On time? Like Aunt Jamime?)

That may be the appeal of writing novels, short stories or poems, but like so many glam pursuits in life, as a writer in transition from copywriter to novelist, I can attest that the reality does not always match up to what it says in the press release. (They pay copywriters to write those.)

The dirty little secret I've never heard anyone express or write about is this: Artistic writers are not nearly as free as some might assume to take on any subject they wish. Sometimes they are forced (and I hate to use that word but it is the only one that seems appropriate) by circumstances to make strategic decisions that lead them to write the books they write in the order that they write them.

First and foremost, never underestimate the power of obsession to lead writers down rabbit holes that cause us, the reading public, to never hear from them again. As a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, I knew extremely talented writers in their 20s I was convinced would become world famous novelists who never did. In rare cases you will see difficult writers of the caliber of Mark Twain, James Joyce, William Faulkner, Thomas Pynchon or John Foster Wallace miraculously emerge from their rabbit-hole obsessions with literary masterpieces that make them famous writers.

I've learned the hard way that there is another way a writer can consign him or herself to obscurity: By choosing to write about a subject he or she cares too deeply about and is therefore too close to write about effectively.

Of course, every writer wants to write about important subjects. That is only human. We all believe we have the most meaningful things to say on subjects we are passionate about. But there may come a point in any writing career where writers become wiser and smarter, where they give up trying to write what they feel most passionate about, and, instead, go with a subject they might feel a little less passionate and more circumspect about because doing so allows them to write about it more effectively. They break the obsession they have with their subject matter and try writing about something else.

All I have written to this point is prompted by this story I am about to tell you. Every word is true.

I had been writing short stories, not very successfully, for about a year. I was having a one-on-one meeting with my writing coach, Matthew Limpede, when he told me, ''You can't keep writing like this. It doesn't work.''

He knew I had been writing what I call memorized stories, stories where I knew the outcome, in fact, knew every aspect of the story before I began writing it.

He was right: I had vested interests in certain characters in my stories. I had people I was trying to protect in my stories and people I was willing to throw under the bus. Matt knew I had been doing this. He was telling me to stop.

''But how do you know I memorized them?'' I asked.

''I just know,'' he said. Non-verbally, he gave me the impression that it was extremely easy for him to know. In fact, he was telling me that he could smell the control in my stories. It was a big turn off to him; probably to others as well.

I said, ''I feel like you're giving me a choice, Matt. I can continue on like this and be a mediocre writer at best, or I can choose to abandon my control thing. If I do that, I still might wind up being mediocre, but at least it won't be because I'm a story control freak.''

He laughed and agreed with me.

Since then I've written stories where I'm open to whatever is happening in the story. Sure, I know what the story is about, and in the most general way what happens, but I no longer have a vested interest in how the story turns out, who wins and who loses.

Some things don't happen until they happen on the page as the writer is in the midst of writing the story. They cannot be thought up in advance. When they happen, they lend authenticity and rivet interest. When that happens to me as I am writing, that's when I know things are going in a positive direction.

Lately, I've been willing to let my principal characters look bad or do evil things if it furthers the story, and if it builds character and makes the writing more interesting.

Moses said: Let my people go. Since I had that conversation with Matt, I say: Let my people break bad, if that is what they would like to do.