What's Next? How an Author Chooses Her Next Project

My second book, Keeping Her Secret, came out in August and since then I haven't written a single word on a new book. Not because I don't have any new ideas, but because I have too many.

My first book (Dragons are People, Too) was a fast-paced, high-stakes urban fantasy and the latest was a light-hearted summer f/f romance, so I'm not really hemmed in by genre expectations. My current ideas include a fun contemporary, an other-world fantasy, a heavy contemporary, and even an epistolary historical. I love reading in all genres and want to write most of them.

My love and passion for writing hasn't diminished; I feel the pull as strongly as ever. I just can't decide what to start. We're talking about beginnings this month on YAtopia and it's got me thinking a lot about the next book.

A conversation with my agent helped me rule out one of the books, as editors aren't interested in that certain sub-genre, so I'm starting to make progress. But when you have several potential projects that excite you for different reasons, how do you choose?

One of the projects requires significantly less research than the others, so I could go the easy route and write that one. But I'm not the kind of person who takes the easy way and I actually really enjoy research. Then again, just because it doesn't require as much research doesn't make it easy.

One of the projects resolves around an issue near and dear to my heart, but it is not an easy one to discuss and every bit of it would require careful consideration. I could do my absolute best and still mess up and that is terrifying for many reasons.

I've never been so torn between projects before, so here's my plan: I'm going to take the three most promising projects and write a scene or two from each and see if anything catches. For an ENTJ and an engineer, this loosey-goosey plan makes me anxious. I wish I could develop an equation, assign values, do some excel analysis, and come out with a clear answer, but writing just doesn't work that way. But it's been too long since I put pen to page and my analytical mind is paralyzed, so I have to push it back and let the creative brain take over, if only for a little while.

Unless anyone else has a better method? I'm all ears over here.

Sarah Nicolas is a recovering mechanical engineer, library event planner, and the author of Dragons are People, Too and Keeping Her Secret. She is a contributor for Book Riot and also writes romance as Aria Kane. When she’s not writing, she can be found playing volleyball or drinking wine. Find her on Twitter @sarah_nicolas.

Changing Things Up

Welcome to 2017! 

I love beginnings. New days, new weeks, new months. Yes, I am someone who actually loves Mondays. On Monday, the week always holds possibility and the chance for something better than last week. I also love mornings for the same reason, and because of coffee. Mornings = Coffee, so how can they be bad?

And today is not only a Monday, it’s the first Monday of 2017. A new year, fresh and open to possibilities. A chance to change things up to meet goals.

Okay, I confess, I didn’t wait until the first of the year to change things. I started last Monday. I’m impatient like that. But since I made changes a week ago, I’m now an authority, so I can give advice.

The last couple of months, writing has been a struggle. Really, for the last year. I did complete a manuscript in 2016, but that happened because I took a week off from life and wrote like a fiend. Truthfully, I’ve found it increasingly difficult to work writing into my everyday life. My other responsibilities feel more important: homeschooling five children, feeding those same five children (even though they do a lot of the cooking, I still have to do the grocery shopping, some assisting, and fix a few meals), driving those children to activities, spending time with my husband, exercising. Yes, those responsibilities are all important, and I honestly enjoy them all too. (Except the tenth grocery store visit in a week. That I do not enjoy.) But I was giving these activities priority, which left me too tired to do the writing thing. I had the time to write, but not the mental energy. Sandwiching writing after homeschooling and exercising and before driving and feeding left me too drained. Those two to three hours became my downtime, NOT my writing time. So I decided something had to change.

A few years ago, I started making sure homeschooling happened first because it was the top priority, and for several years, that worked. Then that schedule stopped working. But because I had drilled into myself that I wasn’t motivated enough to succeed at homeschooling when it came second in my day, I took a really long time to address this problem and recognize that I needed to—and could—make a change. Not only that, but life had changed. My kids are older. Our school day isn’t filled with phonics and addition and crafts. I don’t need to be my freshest, most patient self because the subjects no longer try my patience (most days anyway). Writing can take the first of my day when I’m freshest and school the second half, when all I really need to do is check assignments, read, and ask questions.

So if you’re finding writing (or any other important task) not fitting into your life, here are a few tips to try changing things up.

1. Reevaluate Those Things In the Past That Didn’t Work: So you tried once a month cooking five years ago to give you a couple more hours in the evenings to write, but you ended up eating out too often because you consistently forgot to thaw the meals. Or you attempted to write during your child’s music lessons but you were constantly distracted by the teacher’s teaching and couldn’t focus. Just because these things didn’t work before doesn’t mean they can’t work now. Maybe you can tweak the idea to fit your life better, such as once a week cooking, so you can prep ingredients but keep them thawed in the fridge, or write in the car during music lessons since your child is older now. Don’t continue rejecting an idea simply because you tried it once and failed. You’ve changed. Your life has changed. So try again.
2. Think Outside the Box: For a while, I took a long nap in the afternoons. I got up in time to help with dinner, spend time with the family, and after the kids went to bed around 8ish, I wrote until midnight. Then I’d sleep until five-thirty, go to the gym, homeschool, and after lunch, nap again. It was like living two days every twenty-four hours. Day one was gym and homeschooling, Day two was family time and writing. And it worked. So try arranging your schedule unconventionally.
3. Don’t Give Up Too Soon . . . : When implementing a change in your life, don’t quit before giving it a realistic chance. If you’re getting up an hour earlier to write first thing in the morning, and by day three the newness has worn off and there isn’t enough coffee in the world to wake you up, don’t give up on the experiment. Keep setting your alarm. Keep programming your coffee pot. Keep making the change.
4. . . . But Don’t Be Stubborn About What Isn’t Working: If after a month of waking up early you’ve actually written LESS than before you tried writing in the mornings, reevaluate. Obviously, writing early in the day isn’t working. But maybe it’s only the writing muse that sleeps in while you actually find yourself awake and not hating the solitude of the quiet pre-life hours. If so, what could you do during that time that doesn’t require creative brain cells but would free up time later in the day when the words start flowing? 

Most of us are fitting writing into our lives around family and job and other obligations, and sometimes, the pieces stop fitting together. When that happens, don’t give up on a piece that isn’t fitting. Make a change instead. Try fitting those pieces together in a different way, build a new picture, and make a new beginning.

My Experience with NaNoWriMo (And Why I May Never Do it Again)

In 2014, I did NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, which is November). I didn’t officially sign up, probably because I’m just not a joiner, but I started November 1 with a manuscript I’d mostly plotted in September and October. I wrote Monday thru Friday, taking weekends off out of respect for my family, and three weeks later, I was finished. Over 70,000 words in fifteen writing days.

Since November 2014, I’ve applied the concept of NaNo—taking a month to focus on writing a novel—two more times. In May 2015, I wrote a manuscript in just under four weeks, and last month, I took a week to focus on my WIP, which sat at 35,000 words, and in seven days added 44,000 words, bringing it to completion.

So, I suppose you could say I’m a fan of NaNoWriMo, and I recommend everyone try NaNo at some point. The effort required to succeed will teach you skills that can be useful when you write any time of the year. Here is my list of skills you may learn:

1. Discipline. How to sit at your computer and write, even when the words aren’t flowing. The muse may not visit you daily, but what happens when you are a contracted author, working on a deadline? Then you won’t be able sit back and let the muse show up when she will. So learning to write even when you’re not feeling particularly creative is a valuable skill. After forcing yourself to take the time to write, even if you’d rather play games on your phone or catch up on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, you’ll learn that even when you aren’t feeling in the mood, you can start the words flowing if you just start writing.
2. Plotting. I know, for some, the word “Plotting” is evil. But it doesn’t have to be. I’m not suggesting that everyone (or anyone, for that matter) needs to outline the entire manuscript before writing—though you may want to give it a try at least once—because for many, that is death of the creativity and the story. But plotting doesn’t have to be an outline or a synopsis of the entire, unwritten story. Simply thinking ahead before you write on a daily basis can be helpful, especially if you struggle with a muse who takes unexpected and extended vacations. By “thinking ahead,” I mean spend a little time—5-10 minutes—looking over the previous writing and scribbling out ideas about what you envision happening next. You don’t have to follow this mini scene or chapter outline, but spending some time brainstorming will get you into the story a little quicker.
3. Scheduling. Some things can’t be removed from your daily, weekly, or monthly schedule, but others can be. Like a monthly hair appointment. Stretch the style an extra week or two. Move your dentist appointment. Skip book club. Cut back on workouts (but don’t cut OUT workouts). But with all the things you take out of your schedule, please remember that an occasional shower is necessary. At least one a week. Besides, showers are great places to brainstorm, so really, showering is as important to your creativity as to your socially acceptable-ness.
4. Balance. Actually, I think balance is impossible if you seek balance daily between all your responsibilities. You can’t do it all or be it all every single day. Without considering writing, some days your schedule is so full of errands, appointments, and/or kids’ activities that you can’t cook a meal or get the laundry done. So why shouldn’t writing be—temporarily—the thing that leaves those tasks undone or delegated to another family member? There’s nothing wrong with asking the kids or your spouse to help with meals or laundry. Maybe you eat out a little more—or the rest of the family eats out while you eat at your computer, furiously typing. It’s only temporary. This is easier when the kids are old enough to help and the spouse is willing to assist. If that’s not possible, make a list of daily or weekly chores that you could ignore for a couple of weeks. Or make one day “chore day” and do as much meal prep and laundry as possible. If your kids are too young for you to do much writing during their waking hours, find a babysitter or exchange favors with a mom-friend. Or this might be a nice time for grandma to make a lengthy visit, if grandma is a helpful guest, not a needy one. And if your spouse is helpful (and even if your spouse isn’t helpful, because it’s good for a marriage), remember to thank him or her. You can always go back to the computer after expressing your gratitude ;-)

Despite the success I’ve had, I may never do NaNoWriMo again, because November is not always the best month for me to take time off and focus on writing. Other months may work better. But November isn’t the only month when a writer can write! If you can’t participate in NaNo this year, schedule your own during a month or a block of 4-5 weeks where you CAN focus on writing. The skills practiced and learned during a writing marathon will help in the future when you only have a week or a few days to devote to your manuscript.

Guestopia - Ampersand Prize winner, Cally Black

Today, we've switched things up! Instead of our Guestopia Interview going live on the 26th, we've brought it forward - and for good reason!

First, let's meet today's very special guest... Australian author, CALLY BLACK!

Cally is a winner of Hardie Grant Egmont's Ampersand Prize, and her debut novel In the Dark Spaces will be published in 2017.

She has travelled throughout Asia, Europe and Africa and now lives in Melbourne with her family. When she's not writing YA sci-fi, she teaches TAFE, writes for the educational market, and works with gifted children.

Awesome! Now click here for a little info about the Hardie Grant Ampersand Prize, which closes this year on Friday, September 16th, to find out what a massive writing prize this is!

So, let's gooooooo!

Is this your first published book?

Yes, this is my very first trade novel. It's very exciting.

I've had short stories published for children in Educational Publishing and in SF magazines before but have been focussing on YA novels for the last couple of years.

What’s it called?

In the Dark Spaces, which has a double meaning, and, I feel, invokes a mood similar to one of my favourite stanzas from a Robert Frost poem, “Desert Places.”

Which genre?

Science Fiction Thriller

Which age group?

Young Adult

Is it a series or standalone?

This is standing alone, and if it does really well... who knows?

Are you an agented author?

No. Unagented.

Which publisher snapped up your book?

Hardie Grant Egmont selected it as their Ampersand Prize novel for 2016 from their annual competition. Very exciting for a first novel to hit the ground with an award behind it!

How involved have you been in the whole publishing process of your book?

I'm very hands-on. Marisa at HGE has a lot of advice and ideas for tweaks and I see it as my job to realise that potential, so it's a lot of hard and rewarding work. I don't think anyone else could do it for me. There's an unusual voice and it's set in an unusual world. I wouldn't want anyone else to do it for me!

Do you have another job?

I have two other jobs. I work for a private educational company that works with children during the day and I teach at TAFE at night. Fortunately, I get school holidays off both of those.

Did you receive many, if any, rejections prior?

Only about a gazillion! Actually the last couple of years I'd stopped sending work out (this stops rejections!) and turned inwards to focus on my writing to try to understand why it got attention but never an offer, and to try to improve. It was a process that involved reading a lot of essays and articles by writers and reading their novels and picking apart how they did the things I loved. I'm still in that process. I may always be in that process. There's so much to learn!

What created/what were you doing or watching when the first idea for this book sneaked up on you?

 I'd read Hunger Games and then I read 5^th Wave and I thought you know what? These authors are having fun and letting go and not censoring themselves. Gloves off! I'm going to go into a novel swinging and punching. What's the worst that can happen? I told myself I didn't have to show it to anyone. It was just for me. And there were a few new techniques that I wanted to try so it was all useful.

How long did you plot/plan until you started writing it?

I don't plot. I write to tell myself a story, to entertain myself. If I plotted, I will have told myself the story and the process of writing it would change. What I do is I write scene by scene, and when I get to the end of the story. I put it aside and write it again in a more orderly fashion from scratch, and try to fully realise the motivations and quirks of each character. So I write and then I plot, and then I write again. This second time, I guess is with a writer hat on, whereas the first time, I suppose I'm inhabiting the viewpoint character. This is a very slow way to do things, even if you can type 40wpm, but I think, if the writer is enjoying themselves and connected with their character, you can feel that in the words.

Once you started, did the story flow naturally or did you have to step in and wrestle it into submission?


I started it. It went in a weird direction after 20,000 words. I turned the page and started it again, and I've been wrestling it ever since!

How many drafts did you write before you let someone read it? Who was that someone?

 Well, you understand this was a novel just for me. I made about half a dozen passes over it. Put it aside, came back to it, and I still liked it far too much for the strange thing it was, the experimental thing I was never going to show anyone. So I showed the opening to an online writing group in the US, and they were really accepting of it. They didn't bag anything I thought they would. So then I showed the opening to Dee White who is a great friend and great writer and she liked it. So then the thing I didn't have to show anyone, became something I could actually show people.

Did you employ an editor/proofreader or did you have a critique partner/beta readers before you started querying?


Only the opening with Dee before querying. The Ampersand was a bit of a spur of the moment thing. Normally I would run the whole thing via friends, do a novel swap. I'm pretty good at editing, so it's the story that I need examined. Dee has read the whole novel since to help me with the HGE edits.

Roughly how many drafts did it take before you sent the manuscript off into the real world?

Probably around eight. I'm obsessive about getting things right. Not good at keeping track of numbers.

How many drafts until it was published?

Another four implementing big and minor changes with Marisa.

Has the book changed dramatically since the first draft?

The core main character has remained the same and the core story, but another character was added, and a lot of work expanding characters and their motivation has improved it significantly. It basically grew a heart.

Are there any parts you’d like to change even now?

Yes! Always! Marisa's just pried it from my hands! I'd keep working on it forever. If only there was more time, if only I could have another 10,000 words!

What part of writing do you find the easiest?

I find being the character and writing the openings the easiest. I love writing dialogue. Finding a voice. I love setting the character free to tell her story.

What part do you find hardest?

Endings are hard. Being bound by word counts and pacing is also hard. Not letting the dark parts of the stories overwhelm the light... as might be judged by a YA reader is difficult, because clearly I'm a dark person! My darkometer is a bit stuffed.

Do you push through writing barriers or walk away?

I'm diseased with writing. Did you see above where I said even though no one wanted to publish me, I wrote just for me for two years? I write to entertain myself. I write to learn more about writing. I write because it's a habit I just can't kick, but at least it won't damage my liver.

How many projects do you have on the go at the same time?

Erm... three lately but usually two.

Do you think you’re born with the talent to write or do you think it can be learned?

100% learned. I'm not “writer material” whatever that is. I wasn't read to or raised among bookshelves, we didn't own many books. School libraries were my only source of books. I was good at English but it wasn't my favourite subject. But I am from a family of storytellers. The things we did, became stories told at late night fires after hard day's work. The things we survived, were relegated to stories, told over and over to friends. My history is a collection of stories that have been garnished for entertainment value. There is the truth softened and made entertaining by the story. I am a collection of stories. Maybe we all are.

Early on in my daydream of learning to write, I read Dare to Be a Great Writer by Leonard Bishop. Bishop told me it didn't matter where your starting point was, as he was once a hobo who won a typewriter in a dice game, your voice can be as relevant as any other, more so, if it's honest and raw. It's taken me a long time to trust my voice.

How many future novels do you have planned?

 100s but how many get published is up to the readers, and whether they like this novel.

Do you write other things, such as short stories, articles, blogs, etc?

I don't have time to blog. Lately nothing on the short story front. But perhaps some more in the future.

What’s the highlight of being published so far?

The first meeting with Hardie Grant Egmont when a young woman from marketing came to meet me with Marisa and I asked what her role in the meeting was (feeling nervous I was being assessed for marketability) and she said, she adored the book so much she had to meet the person who wrote it! My first fan!

Give us one writing tip that works for you.

'Don't stage direct the senses.' Your main character is usually too busy seeing something to think about the fact that her eyes are doing the seeing or pointing in a particular direction. Just plunge on in with what's happening.

And one that doesn't.

'Start with action.' Don't start with action, start with some movement, but something that allows your reader an insight into your character. Don't expect a reader to care that an unknown character is under threat of death in the opening paragraph. This is my Ampersand Prize entry tip too.

Can you give us a clue or secret about the next book?

Erm... I haven't got that far along yet. If readers want a sequel, they'll have to let me know next year after they read In the Dark Spaces, but at the moment, I'm writing another YA set closer to home, in small town Victoria, which involves a lot of missing people and a bit of an invasion.

What question have you always wanted to be asked but never have? What would the answer be?

You realise I can say almost anything because as a new author, I've not been interviewed!

But maybe I can share what I was like when I was the age of my protagonist, with the question, “What were you like as a young adult?”

And the answer is: angry, stupid, a lanky goofy thing with no identity or sense of value with a deathwish ambition to be burnt out before 20 (told you I was stupid). And I'm so glad that was one of the many things I failed at.

And that's a wrap! Fantastic. I for one cannot wait to read In the Dark Spaces, it sounds awesome. Thank you so much for joining YAtopia today, Cally!

My Secret Identity: Writing Under Multiple Pen Names

I've gone to four conferences in October and there is one thing I got asked about at every single one, even though I didn't speak on the topic in an official capacity: my pen-names.

For those who don't know, I write YA under the name Sarah Nicolas and romance under the name Aria Kane. (New release coming 11/15!)

Authors publish under different names for a variety of reasons and handle it a variety of ways. If you ask ten different pseudonymous authors, you might get ten different answers. Here are the most common questions I get about my multiple personalities and my answers:

1) Why do you write under a pen name?

Short answer: marketing/branding

Long answer: It's all about marketing and branding.

I actually don't write anything under my legal last name, for two reasons. One is that I started in the YA world and my real name is the same as a popular European lingerie designer (i.e. the Google Image results are not YA-friendly). The second is that someone with my name self-published an unprofessional fantasy/post-apoc novel and I didn't want that associated with my name.

My reasons for a separate pen name for romance are different. Imagine a teenager tells her mother she wants to read my books. The mother searches amazon and finds these covers:

Now imagine, on the opposite side of things, a reader who enjoys my sexy romances and accidentally buys and starts reading Dragons are People, Too, which has, like, some light making out. A hundred pages in.

Neither customer would be happy.

Frequently, romance authors will use a pen name if they live in a conservative environment, are active in their church, or are teachers. I have seen parents go all pitch-and-forky when they find out their child's teacher is a romance author.

Also, a couple of years ago, I saw a discussion on another reason for someone to use a pen name: job applications. An author had a potential employer google her (which everyone does now) and he doubted her intentions and her staying power because the assumptions are: the author already makes more than enough money (hahahahahahahahaha *ahem*) or is going to leave as soon as they start raking in the cash (again, hahahahahaha). So there's that to consider.

The old-school reason to write under different names is so that your mystery (J.D. Robb) books don't get shelved in the romance section (Nora Roberts) of the bookstore, because bookstores like to keep all of an author's books together. This is still a concern but is becoming less influential in these kinds of decisions.

More reasons other authors choose a pen name: Your name is very common or the name of another author (or the name of, say, a serial killer). You worry about stalkers. Your name is hard to spell or pronounce.  Bad sales history. Gender concerns (men writing m/f romance, women writing scifi).

2) Why did you choose the name(s) you chose?

Sarah is my first name and Nicolas is a derivative of my middle name. And the domain name was available.

As for Aria Kane, I've always liked the name Aria and it has some of the same sounds as my first name. One of my favorite names in the world is Cian, but nobody knows how to say or spell it. Also, a couple years ago, a report came out that romance authors with a strong-sounding Anglo-Saxon last name sold better than their counterparts. I don't know how true that is, but why not?

Plus, the domain name was available.

(I told you it was all about marketing)

3) What about your agent?

My agent and I have a very special arrangement when it comes to my pen name. This is a very personal decision. If you are not yet agented, you should have this conversation with any agent who offers representation. If you are agented, you should have the conversation with your agent to figure out how to proceed if you want to start writing in another category or under a different name.

Some agents:

• represent all the author's work, regardless of genre. If this is what you want, look for agents who represent (almost) everything you're interested in writing.
• represent only one category/name while another agent represents the other
• work out a deal with another agent in their house who represents the genre they don't
• any mixture of the above three options

4) How do you keep them straight?

Sometimes I don't. I signed an Aria email the other day with "Thank you, Sarah."

It requires different email addresses, different social media accounts, different personalities.

People look at me like I'm crazy when I say Aria and Sarah have very different personalities. The key is: they're both me, I just accentuate different aspects of my personality, depending on who I am. For example, I let out every bit of my flirtiness and dirty mindedness when I'm Aria. Sarah is more snarky/sarcastic. I'm all of those things.

5) What should I call you?

I don't care. I know some authors will, but if I'm at an event as Aria and you call me Sarah, I'll answer and won't correct you. I now answer to Aria almost as automatically as Sarah. I'm "out."

Sometimes I even forget what name I should introduce myself as. If you see me glance at my badge before I say my name, this is what has happened.


I hope that answers some of your questions about writing under multiple names. If you have any other questions, let me know in the comments!

How to Leverage Your Personality to Bolster Your Writing Productivity

 
I recently attended a religious woman's retreat and during one of our sessions, we discussed our personality types. The Myers-Briggs test from the '50s is a wonderful way to figure out your strengths and weaknesses, what type of career would play out your natural gifts, and may other facets of life. As I explored a topic I've already studied in the past, I realized that the dry spell I've been having in my fictional writing might be due to the fact that I wasn't playing up the needs of my personality.


Re-discovering What Makes Me Feel Accomplished

I haven't changed a bit. That is to say, I've become great at adapting to life's curve balls, but I'm the same person I was ten, fifteen, even twenty years ago. We all are unique, with quirks and needs that affect every part of our world. We have things that make us tick, that make us happy or content or even giddy. Those things can be leverage to make us productive and overflow with inspiration simply by being true to who we are and what works best for us.

Unfortunately, in the last few months, my inspiration well has been drier than a grain of Sahara sand at high noon. Focusing was impossible, words stopped up somewhere between brain and fingers, and I'm fairly certain intelligence chipped off and escaped my body. Lazy, bored, uninspired, and frustrated, I sat in front of a blank screen and stared, mentally begging the words to come.

Turns out, I'd been so wrapped up in life that I'd forgotten a fundamental part of who I am. Specifically, where I got my energy.

One of four parts of a personality according to the test I mentioned above is about how you recharge, how you gather yourself back to being okay. Do you need to be surrounded by people and socializing to feel whole, or do you prefer the quiet solitude to think and imagine?

I am an extrovert. The months I've spent cooped up in our rental, trudging through life in a infuriatingly silence were literally leaving me exhausted and empty. With a simple day retreat with other woman and a 20 point questionnaire, I realized my writing life won't ever be fulfilling if I don't let my need of people, of recharging with many others surrounding me, to be a regular part of it.

Additionally, the final element in my personality made me realize it may be time to take advantage of structure. A schedule, follow through, and completing small goals might help me feel more accomplished. I might even need to be a *gulp* plotter though I've proudly been a pantser for years. Perhaps the plotting will help me focus and complete projects.

I've taken a hold of these bits of myself and developed a plan that I hope will lead my writing in a forward motion. It may require creating my own real-life writing group since I can't find one. It may mean that I need to go to a bookstore or library to write instead of holing up in my office at home. You can do make your own plan once you know your personality type and examined your current habits against it.


Types and Tendencies

If you've never checked out what your personality is, even if you are very self aware, I'd highly recommend it. Insights such as this may help you develop a writing, plotting, or marketing campaign that works better for you than your current one. Keep in mind, some people take on roles or tendencies outside of their true personality, but this is about what is most comfortable or natural to you. Feel free to fill out this "knock-off" personality test (the Myers-Briggs one costs some money) that you can use to get a better sense of your strengths and weaknesses so you can leverage them for your writing.


The four categories used to analyze your personality are:

• Extrovert/Introvert - Do you get your energy recharge from group settings and the energy of others or from quiet time alone in personal or spiritual activities? 
• Regular in person critique groups will appeal to extraverts, while secluded or quiet writing time might appeal to introverts.

• Sensing/ Intuit - How do you take in information? Do you rely strictly on facts of the world around you or do you follow gut instincts?
• This can affect your research style or help you analyze critiques to better your manuscripts.

• Thinker/Feeler - Do you use logic or your feelings to process things?
• Thinkers may be more willing to ask questions of beta readers or feedback, while a feeler may need to take some time to process before replying.

• Judging/ Perceiving - How to you use the information and how important is structure in your life? Do you need a regular, scheduled routine or is spontaneity important to your process?
• The good ol' pantser/plotter come into play here. Do you need more structure than you realized previously? Deadlines are important to Judgers, while perceivers may consider deadlines flexible.

By knowing the way you best handle these elements, you can bend your writing time and process to better accommodate your writing.

Click to Tweet: "E.G. Moore discusses how your personality should affect your writing habits on @YAtopia_blog"

I'd love to know what you discovered! Please share your personality type and any ah-ha moments you may have had when you read about it in the comments below. Pinterest is also a great place to find out more about your type one you discover it. Just enter your four letter combination into the search bar, and have some fun.
 

E. G. Moore is a poet, freelance writer, and storyteller (the first of which her mom still has recorded on a cassette tape.)  She is a long distance member of For Pete’s Sake Writers Group in Washington, active in an email writer’s response group, and a Rocky Mountain Chapter SCBWI member. When she’s not telling “Mommy Made stories” to her two daughters or nagging her husband to edit her latest manuscript, she can be found off-roading in her suped-up ATV, baking some scrumptious bread, or in a long, plot-refreshing bubble bath. She’s represented by Jessica Schmeidler of Golden Wheat Literary. E.G. Moore tweets, posts on Facebook, and blogs at: www.emilygmoorewriter.blogspot.com

Putting “Write What You Know” into Practice

We’ve all heard the adage “write what you know.” In her latest book, the upcoming Young Adult novel, MAP TO THE STARS, which releases on July 14, author and former YAtopia blogger, Jen Malone, does just that.

The book, which I was lucky enough to read early, follows fifteen-year-old Annie as she travels through Europe as part of a teen movie idol’s promotional tour.

Is Jen a movie idol? No (but she could be!). The “write what you know” comes in as Jen not only worked in publicity for 20th Century Fox, but she also traveled around the world after she graduated, hitting a whopping forty-three countries over ten months. Awed yet?

Jen’s here to tell us a bit more about writing what you know…

Q: Does Annie encounter anything you experienced in your role at 20th Century Fox?

A: Soooo much of it!! For example, in one early scene in the book Annie gets roped into helping out at a press junket (which is where a movie studio will fly in reporters from around the country and gather all the stars of a movie in one hotel for a full weekend of interviews). In the book Annie’s in charge of timing Graham’s (the teen movie idol) TV interviews to five minutes each and then ushering one reporter out of the hotel room and the next one in. 

When the questions become really repetitive as the day wears on, Graham entertains her by coming up with really offbeat answers that differ wildly from what the previous reporter was told. This actually happened to me, when I had the same job at the press junket for Star Wars: Episode One. I can’t reveal the movie star but let’s just say he could handle himself just fine on a plane full of snakes. Anyway, if he answered one reporter saying he and George Lucas had creative differences during filming, the next was told he and George had spent Christmas together and were arranging the marriages of their children. So hilarious! Also, it should be noted, in the book Graham does this to flirt with Annie. That was NOT the case in the real-life scenario -- he was just trying to crack up those of us stuck in a tiny hotel room with him and all this camera equipment all day. As a fun aside, in the book Annie’s mom (who is a makeup artist) gets cornered in the hallway by an obnoxious publicist wanting to ask her how she should do her makeup for her upcoming wedding. That was a direct dig at me, because I did exactly this to Natalie Portman’s makeup artist (who happens to be the founder of Stila!). I figured if she was getting paid five figures a day to put makeup on the flawless NP, she’d probably be grateful for more of a challenge. J She was pretty awesome with her advice, actually!

Q: What’s the most fun/craziest thing you did as part of your movie job?

A: Craziest: I once met LL Cool J and his entourage at the airport after midnight and he decided he wanted Chinese food before heading to his hotel. Except he wanted it from a specific place in a not-so-great area of Boston and he’s not sure exactly where it is, but his friend will “know it when we see it.” Eventually we roll down the window of the limo at a light and ask a few kids on dirt bikes, who immediately offer to escort us there. So now we’re cruising at 8 mph through housing projects in a limo and people are coming out to point and the kids on the bike are yelling, “Hey, it’s LL in there!!!!” By the time we stop at the restaurant about fifty people are running behind the limo. He got out and signed autographs (on all kinds of body parts) for every last one of them and when one guy told him he couldn’t afford to see the new movie LL was promoting, he handed him $20 and said, “Now go peep it.” I break this story out at every dinner party, by the way!

Q: I was hoping that was the story you were going to tell! Now, as glamorous as it sounds to work in the “biz,” I’m sure there were mundane tasks, just like the ones Annie has to do. What were some of the least fun aspects of your job?

A: I had one actor who insisted on quadruple stuff Oreos (Double Stuff just wasn’t enough “stuff”) so I spent an afternoon picking apart and smooshing together Oreos. Another would only drink bottled water from a particular area of France and it took me hours to find someone there who would ship me some. Before I collected the actors from the airport, I would first have to go check into their hotel rooms for them and make sure all the light bulbs worked in their lamps and the toilets flushed, so they wouldn’t have to endure the hassle of calling the front desk (can you sense my eye roll here?). So I was literally getting paid to flush toilets!

Q: Is there a celebrity you met who stands out? Why?

A: Strange as this might sound, the A-list actors were always, always the sweetest. I think they’d had time in the industry to just “get over themselves” in a way the newer, less secure actors hadn’t yet. The absolute nicest of the nice were Jamie Lee Curtis and Oprah Winfrey (who, for security reasons, had to come in through the hotel’s employee entrance and then spent considerable time chatting genuinely with each third-shift worker she encountered in the kitchen and laundry rooms she passed through on the way to the elevator).

Q: Having visited so many countries, I’m sure it’s hard to pick a favorite place. What are your top three? 

A: Hmmm. Yup. Definitely hard, and constantly changing! Top is Nepal, both for having the nicest people and for being so exotic and yet so accommodating to English-speaking travelers (although I always made sure I knew the local words for please and thank you and some other basics so I wouldn’t be the obnoxious American; it’s a huge bonus when you can read an occasional street sign or a menu!). Next up is Prague. I just love all the cobblestone paths and the castle and the architecture -- it’s beyond atmospheric. Rounding it out, I might have to say Australia for combining beautiful surroundings with such a laid-back vibe.

Thank you, Jen!  

Get more of Jen's former life via Annie in MAP TO THE STARS!

About Jen

Jen Malone writes books for tweens and teens. Her debut At Your Service published with Simon & Schuster/Aladdin MIX in 2014 and her new series, You're Invited (Simon & Schuster), co-written with Gail Nall, released on May 19, 2015. Map to the Stars is the first of three young adult titles forthcoming from HarperCollins. Jen lives outside Boston with her husband and three children, teaches at Boston University, loves school visits, and has a "thing" for cute hedgehog pictures. You can learn more about her and her books at www.jenmalonewrites.com.

Lori Goldstein is the author of Becoming Jinn (Feiwel and Friends/Macmillan, now available!!, sequel, Spring 2016). With a degree in journalism and more than 10 years of experience, Lori is a freelance copyeditor and manuscript consultant for all genres. She focuses on the nitty-gritty, letting writers focus on the writing.

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